


Stick to the Script

by thisisforyou



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Femme Fatale, First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, M/M, Masturbation, Roleplay, UST, because I can't do it without anymore, casefic, porn with a little plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:34:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisisforyou/pseuds/thisisforyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe Sherlock should have guessed that asking John to pretend to tie him to the bed and shag him though the headboard - for a case - wasn't such an intelligent idea. Or, the one in which a femme fatale murder causes Sherlock and John to role-play sex. Repeatedly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mr_CSI](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_CSI/gifts).



> For [Mr_CSI](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mr_CSI/pseuds/Mr_CSI), on the joys of role-playing sex with one's flatmate. 
> 
> I really just wanted to see if it was possible for me to write anything in the canon!Sherlock!verse, other than AUs. I'm expecting this to be around 6-8 chapters, and I feel like I might be updating faster than I do my AUs, but I still wouldn't recommend the holding of breath.

" _Fantastic_ ," Sherlock breathed.

He could see John rolling his eyes behind him out of the corner of his own and he smiled slightly. He liked it when John did things like that – it signified the things that he had accepted about Sherlock that had driven all his predecessors away. He had never expected to find someone who merely smiled encouragingly at him as he peered intently underneath the fingernails of a dead body.

The dead body, in this particular instance, was stretched out on a magnificent four-poster bed with limbs flung to the four posts, looking like a cross between a starfish and a gruesome, slightly overweight caricature of Jesus Christ on the cross. He was mostly dressed, his crisp white shirt unbuttoned to expose the soft swell of his belly and the pectoral muscles of someone who used to exercise religiously but has let themselves go, the equally expensive black slacks unbuttoned and unzipped, the soft, pathetic-looking penis hanging out over the fabric.

He pulled out his magnifier; there were strips of soft, flexible tape – marketed as bondage tape, Sherlock guessed, pulling on it to test the elasticity – hanging limply from the posts at the corners of the bed. _Someone_ had been tied to this bed, and recently, judging by the amount of stick on the tape. But there were no obvious ligature marks on the dead man's wrists, and a quick examination under the magnifier showed that there was no trace of the hair loss that would surely result from ripping off the tape.

He'd been strangled, though, with no signs of a struggle. He had seen murders much like this before, and yet he would have expected the victim to be the one who had been tied down, a submissive who had picked the wrong person to dominate them. This was very unusual. It was _wonderful_.

John made a noise of half-hearted protest as Sherlock used his latex-covered hands to lift the man's penis and examine it. Sherlock turned away from it briefly in order to raise an eyebrow at his friend, the non-verbal _how else am I going to learn_ flitting between them until John made a tiny gesture as if to throw his hands up in surrender and turned away.

There were traces of dried semen around the tip. The killer had definitely taken satisfaction from the man _somehow_ before strangling him.

"Not so _petit mort_ ," he commented drily, removing the gloves with a _snap._ John grunted in acknowledgment of the joke. Lestrade looked puzzled. Sherlock sighed. "He was killed post-coitus," he explained impatiently. "Evidently before he had had a chance to tidy himself up."

The DI grunted in sympathy. "He was into being tied up, though," he mused, pointing at the ends of the bondage tape. "You'd think he'd choose his partners more wisely."

Sherlock tutted. "The victim wasn't the one who was tied up," he said, impatience leaking through his voice at the way in which the Yard insisted on dawdling so far behind his deductions. _John_ had that delightful little half-smile on his face that said he knew the reasoning behind this one. "If the killer had tied him up and killed him, why bother untying him? And the victim's wrists show no signs of having been bound – no ligature marks or depilation."

Anderson cleared his throat pointedly from the doorway. "Would you let the _forensic scientists_ take a look at it, then?" he said nastily. "If the _killer_ was the one tied up, there might be DNA on the tape."

"No," Sherlock rebutted instantly. "The tape's much too short. He or she would have been _cut_ free and taken the bits of tape still on their wrists with them. Pay attention, Anderson."

The scientist rolled his eyes despairingly at Lestrade. The DI, however, wasn't looking at him, but staring thoughtfully at the body. " _She_ ," he said quietly.

Sherlock looked at him. "What?"

"The killer was a woman," Lestrade explained, flicking the file in his hand open and looking at the papers inside it. "We interviewed his neighbours when we first got here and they said they were quite loud, and they could definitely hear a woman's voice. They also gave us the name of the bar he usually goes to, Sally's there now talking to the bartender."

Sherlock nodded. "You told her not to bias the witness by being hostile, didn't you?" he quipped. Lestrade's fed up expression coaxed a smile onto his face.

"She won't bias the witness," the DI said in a long-suffering manner. "Sergeant Donovan is a perfectly capable police officer, despite her personal flaws." Sherlock raised an indifferent eyebrow and let the issue rest. He didn't _like_ Donovan, but he did have to admit that she was a passable officer. Lestrade grinned at him. "Go on, then," he said, sighing as though it was the last thing he wanted.

Sherlock quirked a smile. "Even you can tell that he's wealthy. Probably arrogant, too, judging by the way the wealth is displayed throughout the house and the clothes he's almost wearing. So – young, passably handsome, rich and arrogant man who's dominant with his sexuality. I would hazard a guess that he's not particularly careful with his submissive lovers. There must be a long list of women he's abused under the guise of BDSM."

Lestrade sighed. "Can we _narrow down_ the list in any way?" he asked resignedly. Anderson made his usual noise of disgust at the ease with which his DI trusted "The Freak". Sherlock glanced at him scornfully.

"It's probably recent," he mused, peering at the victim's exposed belly and groin again. "I mean, they're probably a recent conquest of his. But I doubt he would have shared his sex life with his neighbours or his friends." He frowned down at the man. "If the barman saw them you might have a physical description. Who knows, maybe he even knew her." Lestrade's face took on that look that it had when he knew there was nothing else he could do. Sherlock shrugged. "Send me the case file and the barman's statement and if the barman doesn't know who she is John and I will do some investigations."

John snorted. "What, are we going to embed ourselves in the S&M scene?" he asked playfully.

Sherlock shot him a grin and muttered, "You wish." He hadn't meant it to be flirtatious, but from the way the doctor grinned back he could tell it had turned out that way anyway. Sometimes he wasn't sure whether John returned his flirting because he thought Sherlock only did it to unnerve the Yarders or because he, like Sherlock, did it without realising, did it because it was the natural response to the way John looked and spoke and moved.

"All right, you two, you can't shag here, it's a crime scene," Lestrade muttered, making shooing movements with his hands. John started on his customary _we're not a couple_ before giving up. Sherlock was never sure whether he should be pleased that the doctor seemed to think better of his protests or upset that he still attempted to make them.

The flirting that had passed between them was forgotten by the time they made it back into a taxi. Sherlock quite often wondered if he was imagining it.

Lestrade's text arrived as they were getting out of the cab at Baker Street. Sherlock made a noise of interest. John looked up eagerly, as though ready to get right back into the car. "The barman didn't know her, but he was watching them for a while. Got a good description of her, and of the way they were behaving."

"Oh?" John asked, holding the front door open for Sherlock to pass him. "That's good."

Sherlock hummed happily. "I'll look at the statement inside – he says it looks like he _took_ control from her. Could be interesting."

John frowned as he hung his coat over the hook by the door. "I can't imagine what that would be like," he said slowly. "To trust someone with _that_ kind of intimacy and then know in your last moments that they betrayed you."

Sherlock snorted. "If you want to trust someone with that, don't pick a stranger," he rejoined. It was so easy for _him_ to imagine John doing it, finding someone good-looking who was willing to indulge a kink that sent others running, so eager to be affectionate that he would trust them without knowing more about them than their first name. He wasn't willing to examine the flicker of jealous anger that the thought sparked in him. John just _trusted_ people. Sometimes it worried him and he wanted to beat the habit out of him. Other times he worried that if he did, perhaps John would no longer trust _him_ so implicitly.

"Unfortunately, if you don't pick a stranger, you won't get anyone," John said wistfully. He accepted Sherlock's coat when it was held out to him with an absent expression, as though he didn't notice he was doing it. That was another thing that Sherlock valued so much about John: Sherlock had become such an intrinsic part of his life that it was as if the doctor attended to his every need without thinking about it, on automatic pilot the same way in which he brushed his own teeth. "And sometimes you need someone."

He thought about rebutting the point. Everything he _needed_ from someone he got from John. Everything else was something that people _wanted_. He had to admit - only to himself, of course - that he sometimes thought about seeking _those_ things from John, too. Only in an abstract sort of a way, in that sometimes when he pleasured himself the doctor's face popped into his head, in that occasionally out of curiosity he wondered whether John would like to hold or be held, whether he himself would rather have his friend's strong arms around him or his stocky body held tightly against his own chest. He shrugged instead, affecting disinterest, and wandered off to find John's laptop.

John wiggled a mug of tea slightly beside his head so that Sherlock could hear the no doubt perfectly prepared liquid sloshing around inside it. He reached up and took it without looking up from the laptop screen. "Thank you," he said absently. Lestrade's eyewitness statement from the bartender had just arrived.

The doctor hummed. "Where's your laptop? If you're using mine, I'm going to use yours."

Sherlock finally looked up at him. "It's in the bedroom," he said, noticing the tiny flush that always made itself known on John's face when he said _the bedroom_ instead of _my bedroom_. "But it doesn't work properly anymore, I took out half the RAM to use in an experiment."

John blinked at him for a moment. Then he sighed in slow-motion, an elongated breath in and a pause and an elongated breath out. "Fine," he said calmly. "I'll check the blog in the morning, then."

"Don't go anywhere, though, John, I'll need you in a minute," Sherlock interrupted as the doctor began to move off. He waved an arm at the laptop. "Lestrade just sent through the eyewitness statement of the victim and that woman at the bar. I want to go through it, see if their behaviour gives away any clues as to why and how she killed him."

The doctor folded his arms, frowning curiously. "Why do you need me for that? If I'm just filling in for the skull again -"

 _Filling in for the skull_ had become a sort of code between them, John's way of calmly letting Sherlock know he was using him, inconveniencing him when he didn't really need him there. Until John had started pointing it out, Sherlock hadn't realised how often he kept John around simply to watch his fond, amazed smile. "No," Sherlock replied hastily. "I want to re-enact it. To get an idea of what he would have been like, what _they_ would have been like together. What he might have made her feel."

John stared at him. Sherlock realised how the sentence had sounded after a moment of his gaze. "No, I mean - what he might have done that annoyed her, how she might have picked him out as someone that she wanted to murder. Seeing someone act the way he might have could help."

"Oh, right," John said, nodding. "Okay. Let me get my tea."

Sherlock smiled; he'd known John would agree, even though pretending to pick each other up at a bar definitely wasn't something that John's idea of 'normal flatmates' did. He brought up this notion of 'normal' when he was angry with Sherlock, but he never seemed to adhere to it himself. He was pretty sure 'normal flatmates' didn't sit quite as close to one another on the sofa in the evenings as they did, or have quite so few boundaries when it came to sharing the bathroom. Sherlock himself didn't particularly care whether John saw him urinating or showering, and he attributed the doctor's corresponding lack of shyness to his time in the army and to his medical disregard for nudity. "Don't bother, we'll do it in the kitchen," he replied. "They were standing at the bar; the kitchen counter's the closest thing we have."

John nodded briskly and set off for the kitchen. Sherlock smiled fondly after him. He skimmed his eyes over the rest of the statement – the eyewitness they had interviewed had eventually stopped watching because the pair had seemed to forget they were in public once they started kissing. The dominance of the victim was already clear from the kiss, though. A tiny shiver announced itself up Sherlock's spine, and he followed John into the kitchen.

" _She_ approached _him_ ," he opened, setting the laptop and his untouched cup of tea on the kitchen counter between them. John turned up his chin in that stoic way he had when he had set his mind on doing something. "Suggests that she'd already picked him out from the crowd – maybe she followed him there, or maybe he just happened to make the wrong gesture at the wrong time. Either way, it's hardly the behaviour of a full-time submissive."

The doctor snorted. "I think _murdering_ someone is hardly the behaviour of a full-time submissive."

Sherlock tipped his head in acknowledgment, grinning. "Perhaps not," he agreed.

John returned the grin. "So, I'm the victim," he said abruptly, leaning against the counter, holding his mug of tea much in the same way Sherlock had seen him hold a pint-glass. He neglected to point out that the victim had been drinking spirits. " _Approach me_."

His tone of voice was one Sherlock had never heard directed at him before: bold, seductive. He gave his friend a wry grin before stepping candidly right into his personal space. "Good evening," he murmured, toying with the idea of putting a woman's high pitch into his voice before pitching it low and sultry instead.

John's entire demeanour changed. He stood up straighter, no longer resting the majority of his weight against the bar. "Evening," he replied, a tiny note of pleased surprise in his voice, which had dropped half an octave to reflect Sherlock's own. There was a tiny comfortable pause, and then John said – in the same hypnotic tone of voice – "Do we know what they said to each other?"

Sherlock smiled seductively, reaching for his mug of tea and letting his fingers play suggestively with the handle before picking it up. "The witness was on the other side of the bar," he replied, keeping up the act. He wanted to know _how_ John, who knew people's character even if he was not an expert on deducing the small things, thought the victim would talk and stand and move. Exactly _what_ he was saying wasn't important. "But I don't think they talked for very long." He dropped his eyes from John's with a reluctance that wasn't entirely faked and checked the report. "No," he said, angling the screen towards the doctor and using the gesture to mask a tiny step closer to him. He'd never been on the receiving end of John's seduction before. Was this a technique he used with the women he dated, or was it something he was making up just for the role-play? "The _real_ intention was always clear, _talking_ wasn't necessary _."_

John laughed, a low rumble that really wasn't too different from his normal laugh. He pushed off the counter and put down his tea, the predatory expression on his face giving way to something almost tender for a moment. "And then what happened?" he asked, his voice quieter now, more intimate.

"She reached up and touched his face," Sherlock continued, doing so, the slightly rough skin of John's cheek warm under his hand. The doctor's face was slightly flushed, his thin lips parted. He looked, beautifully, like a confident man who had been absolutely blindsided by unexpected attraction to the person in front of him. Sherlock wondered why he'd never thought much of John's acting skills before now.

He leaned in slightly, and John copied him as though the movement was subconscious, involuntary. A smile wormed its way onto Sherlock's mouth; John's eyes followed the movement helplessly as he leaned in further, his own lips parted, expectant. Sherlock could feel the power, the electricity, the intoxicating knowledge that he _had_ John, and a tiny flicker of sympathy for the murderer he was impersonating crept up on him.

John's breath blew across his face, smelling of tea and peppermint toothpaste. For a tiny instant, Sherlock considered actually kissing him and passing it off as a part of the role-play. He'd wondered for a while what it would be like to kiss John's lips. But the doctor would be kissing him and pretending to be someone else, so it wouldn't be the same.

"And then they kissed," Sherlock breathed instead, his voice coming out quieter than he had meant it, more intimate, as he tried to prevent himself from breathing on John's face. He had had coffee when John had had tea, and his own mouth tasted slightly sour.

John let out a long breath, his blue eyes fluttering closed. Sherlock swallowed. He knew he ought to move away from his friend, call off the role-play. He'd caught the intended glimpse of motive, and he knew John wouldn't be comfortable with the actual kissing part of the account. But the space between them now felt comfortable somehow, just more evidence of how much they trusted each other, and Sherlock rather liked the reminder, liked being close enough to kiss but not needing to.

"How did they kiss?" John whispered unexpectedly, his eyes still gently shut, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. The words tickled Sherlock's face as they went past.

Sherlock's eyes slid sideways, glancing at the laptop screen, even though he'd memorised the statement already. "Violently," he answered, suddenly not enough breath in his lungs. "He took control, pushed her up against the bar. And that's when the witness -"

He broke off with a surprised gasp as John surged forwards, their closed mouths bumping painfully together, John's body marshalling his own backwards until the small of his back hit the lip of the kitchen counter. He was momentarily surrounded by John's breath, warm and close, as the doctor's hands held him firmly around the waist and his closed mouth pressed insistently against Sherlock's, demanding and controlling. Sherlock made a helpless noise, feeling his face flush red as soon as the sound escaped. It was just as he had always imagined kissing John would be like, in the rare quiet moments when he had allowed himself to imagine: unrelenting, focused, commanding. It was lucky the kitchen counter was holding him up, because his knees had buckled, and they were only bumping their faces together like teenagers.

John pulled away as suddenly as he had advanced, breathing hard but steadily and smiling his usual bold grin. "Like that?" he asked.

Sherlock had to clear his throat before he answered. "I believe so," he replied. "The witness stopped watching them after that out of embarrassment."

The doctor nodded. "Right. Well, is that all? I might take my tea up to bed, if it's all the same to you. I'm covering Tamsin's early shift at the surgery tomorrow."

And when Sherlock nodded he turned around and marched out of the kitchen, and the sound of his footsteps on the stairs followed almost immediately. Sherlock didn't trust himself to move away from where he was still leaning against the bench, the pressure of John's lips and nose and chin lingering against his own. He reached up a helpless hand to his lips and wondered whether he hadn't made a mistake beginning this.

_Fuck._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all spectacular human beings. Here, have some smut.

John bounced down the stairs the next morning as though he had solidly slept his each and every worry quite away.

Sherlock, who hadn't slept at all, glared at him from the living-room table. John said a cheerful 'good morning, Sherlock', ignoring the glare completely until he had ventured out of the kitchen, balancing a stack of toast and two mugs of tea. "Didn't sleep, then?" the doctor asked, placing one of the mugs of tea in front of Sherlock and sitting down opposite him, careful to position the toast halfway between the two of them so that the invitation was clear.

"No," Sherlock said sharply, absorbing himself in Lestrade's case file so that he wouldn't have to explain _why_ he had not slept. He had had a few thoughts about the case, but they had been mostly obscured by the memories of John's lips on his, of how it had felt as if simply pressing their mouths together was somehow _more_ erotic, more desperate, than if they had opened their mouths and tangled their tongues together. Not that the thought of tangling their tongues together didn't create its own problems.

Perhaps it was unsurprising that pretending to seduce and be seduced by John had taken the absent-minded attraction at the back of Sherlock's mind and blown it up into the _want_ he had been struggling with all night. He had _tried_ to sleep, hoping that his mind would work through the surface issues around his flatmate while he did so and allow him to focus on the case when he awoke, but when he'd caught his almost-asleep body shoving a pillow between its legs and thrusting against it for a third time – even _after_ he'd given in and masturbated to thoughts of John fucking him against the kitchen counter – he'd given up on the endeavour. He hadn't soiled his sheets since he was fifteen and he wasn't about to start now.

He glanced up at his flatmate, sitting calmly at the other end of the living-room table and munching on toast with strawberry jam. He'd worried briefly whether he would ever be able to look John in the eye again, but there was a clear separation somehow between the John who had so effectively seduced him last night and the John that was bright-eyed over his breakfast this morning. A part of Sherlock wanted to find the seam that held the two apart and tap at it until it broke, until breakfast- John was just as mind-blowingly sexy as actively seducing-John. A more sensible part of him was glad there was a distinction, or he'd never be able to keep himself from jumping the doctor at inappropriate times of day.

"Did you have any ideas about the case, then?" John asked, shaking the crumbs off his fingers and beaming at him. Sherlock delicately picked up the second piece of toast before John could eat it, despite the fact that it was smothered with ginger marmalade, which John didn't usually eat himself unless he was trying to convince Sherlock to eat with him.

He smiled tightly around a mouthful of ginger and bread. "Several," he replied once his mouth was empty. "But only one I believe to be worth pursuing."

John waited for Sherlock to continue, but he did not. He wasn't quite sure whether he _ought_ to pursue the idea that he had had, not in the way he was thinking. "Are you going to tell me what it is?"

"Not yet, John," Sherlock said with a brightness he did not feel, dropping the last crust of toast back onto the plate and pushing himself out of his chair, "it can certainly wait until you come back from the surgery. I may need your help again."

He made sure to emphasise the _may_ so that John wouldn't be surprised if he turned around later and said he didn't need him anymore; he had been wavering between options all morning since the idea had occurred to him.

One corner of John's thin lips turned up amusedly. "Tease," he declared wryly. Sherlock shot him a stunning smile that apparently turned flirtatious on him again, because the doctor's own smile betrayed a flash of the idle, sultry heat Sherlock had received the previous night. It was lucky he was still holding onto the back of his chair, because his knees threatened to buckle.

Once John had left the flat, Sherlock threw himself down on the sofa and steepled his hands beneath his chin. The _idea_ , the one that actually related to the case, seemed a fairly good and solid one. But the easiest way in which to assess its plausibility was to carry on what he and John had started the night before, and after his incredible reaction to _that_ he wasn't sure it was at all advisable.

He'd been working on the assumption that the woman had ceded control right from the start of the exchange. And yet he, Sherlock, had retained it when initiating the role-play because it had seemed sensible – he had read the statement when John had not, he knew what they were about to do when John, without being told, did not. He'd kept control of the situation almost without realising it. And then John had snatched that control away from him.

What if the murderer _wasn't_ usually submissive? Hadn't _intended_ to be the one who ended up tied to the bed, but had been so blindsided by the victim's domination in that first kiss that everything else had followed in a blur of lost control?

When John had kissed him like that it had left _Sherlock_ helpless with breathless lust. In the killer, perhaps, the reaction had been more like shock, at the man for dominating her so thoroughly and at her own body for reacting to it the way it must have done. And it was not such a huge step for such shock to turn into anger, and anger into a hatred that would have fermented through the night like Chinese black tea until it was overwhelming. It was, then, not such a huge leap of reasoning that if her intentions towards him had been less than pleasant to start with then her anger could easily have caused her to leap on him the instant he released her hands.

Sherlock hadn't exactly been _unaware_ of his own likings for being dominated. He just hadn't expected them to be pulled to the front of his mind at that precise moment. John was a soldier, and he had unconsciously dominated Sherlock from very early on in their acquaintance. He had noticed Sherlock's haphazard eating and sleeping habits and gently took control of them, until he only had to hint that Sherlock ought to eat something and he would. Sometimes he felt like he ought to be annoyed at this, but he did have to admit that he functioned a lot better under John's instruction.

The immediately obvious way to explore this theory was to continue last night's role-play. John had proven to be particularly comfortable in the persona of the victim – Montgomery, Sherlock remembered from the file, somebody Montgomery – and if John's behaviour didn't elicit the same reactions in him, didn't seem as though they would make the murderer feel the same, then he would dismiss the theory and move on. Perhaps another theory would make itself apparent as they progressed.

And yet – surely the first experiment should have been enough to show Sherlock the dangers of inviting sexual behaviour from John when he didn't mean it. Asking for _more_ would surely ensure that he could never sleep again without the memories and wishes and fantasies springing up behind his eyelids.

But what if John _did_ mean it? Sherlock hadn't intended them to actually kiss the previous night, he'd assumed it would make John uncomfortable and thought that simply talking through it with the doctor exuding Montgomery's general air would be sufficient. Apparently kissing Sherlock _didn't_ make John uncomfortable. And perhaps it was only the violent nature of the kiss, but he had definitely been panting a little when they parted. What if John wanted him but was afraid that Sherlock would turn him down? He hadn't exactly made an effort to show his friend his sensual side before now; in fact, he had been careful to hide it, hoping that the supposedly heterosexual doctor wouldn't notice how many of Sherlock's sexual impulses were directed at him. And he'd been so preoccupied with that that he hadn't thought to examine John's reactions to _him._

Sherlock sat up, stretching out the cricks in his neck from where the sofa wasn't quite long enough, and grinned at the skull on the mantelpiece. _Why not?_ He would push this as far as it would go. And then, hopefully, John would push it further.

John returned in the evening, just as boredom was threatening to drive Sherlock right out of his own skull. Sherlock returned his perfunctory greeting from where he had printed out the case file and spread it out over the living-room floor; predictably, John stopped dead and stared. "Was it really necessary to rearrange _all_ the furniture?" he asked, sounding resigned.

Sherlock looked up, affecting surprise. "Did I?" he asked absent-mindedly. He knew that he had, of course. The coffee-table hadn't fit all of the case file, and he couldn't see it properly with the sofa in the way. John tilted his head as if to say _you know you did_. Sherlock shrugged. "It works better this way, we should keep it like this."

"I can't see the telly from the sofa," John protested, but he wandered into the kitchen and Sherlock could hear the kettle click on and the clatter of mugs coming down from the cupboard. "It's going back before _Top Gear_."

Sherlock tried to think when _Top Gear_ started. He was fairly sure it wasn't even on that night. "Fine," he said airily, and settled back to analysing the new witness statements from Montgomery's neighbours and a few other people Donovan had managed to track down from the bar. None of them had seen as much as the barman, although a middle-aged woman on an apparently dismal blind date had seen them leave together, Montgomery not-so-subtly squeezing the woman's arse on their way out the door.

John sighed as he came out of the kitchen, crouching beside Sherlock until his knees cracked. Sherlock looked around and smiled at him, taking the cup of tea when it was offered to him. "Are those new witness statements?" the doctor asked, sitting back on his heels and taking an innocent sip of his tea. Sherlock grinned at him.

" _Oh_ , yes," he said happily. "Nothing particularly helpful, though."

His flatmate hummed in disappointment. "You said before I left this morning that you might need my help again?"

Sherlock considered it one more time before nodding matter-of-factly. "I have a theory about their motivation, but to make sure I'll need to explore _more_ of how they might have interacted that night."

John watched him for a moment, his blue eyes narrowed. "Are you saying you want to role-play S&M sex with me?"

"You make it sound so perverted," Sherlock quipped, not daring to hold his breath in case John noticed. "Only if you're comfortable, John, I understand that it's not something… but I really think it would help me solve this case."

The doctor laughed. "You manipulative bastard," he said easily. "You can stop pouting like that, I'll do it." He chuckled a bit more as Sherlock dropped the subtle wide eyed expression he had adopted, then groaned. "Oh, God, I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"

Sherlock tried to look affronted. It wasn't terribly difficult. "Of course not, my dear John." The doctor's eyes narrowed again. Sherlock only ever called him _my dear John_ when he was completely high on the thrill of a case, and John had apparently come to associate the endearment with impending danger. Not that that ever put him off. "If you're uncomfortable at any point, just say so and we'll stop. I'm sure every bit of this activity will be enlightening." _If not always to the case,_ he didn't add.

John smiled resignedly. "Are you going to tell me what your theory is, then?" he asked, rather densely in Sherlock's opinion.

"If you know what I'm trying to find out, then you'll influence it one way or the other," Sherlock sighed. "Just act like you think Montgomery would. Just like you did last night."

And then suddenly John sat back slightly, leant one arm against the sofa, and grinned, and it wasn't _John's_ grin but Montgomery's, the one he had had last night right before he had leaned forward and taken Sherlock's breath away. Sherlock huffed in a sharp breath before pushing that memory out of his mind and adopting the sly, predatory smile he had taken on as the killer's. "Where would you like to start?" John growled.

Sherlock's spine tingled. "From the beginning," he breathed lowly, leaning forwards for the merest of moments before standing up gracefully. John, who had rocked forwards slightly as though to meet Sherlock in the middle, looked up at him with an amused little half-smile. Sherlock quirked a flirtatious eyebrow at him before wandering over to the table by the window and perching his bottom against the edge. He took a sip of tea. "Won't you join me at the bar, Mister Montgomery?"

He turned to his laptop and brought up the barman's witness statement and the one from the woman who had seen him leave for reference, unplugging the computer so that he could take it with him when they adjourned to Sherlock's bedroom. _Stewart_ , he read from Lestrade's case summary. _Stewart Montgomery_.

John chuckled, his voice that low and seductive rumble it had been last night, and followed Sherlock, leaning casually across him to put down his own mug of tea on the table and glance down at the summary. Sherlock closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of John's hair. _Raspberries_ , he thought, and wondered what kind of product the doctor put in it because his shampoo wasn't fruit-flavoured. "Stewart, please," John said as he pulled back, evidently having read the name on the screen.

Sherlock smiled slowly. " _Stewart_ ," he repeated, smiling with just a little more than his usual hint of teeth. John returned the smile and twisted his body slightly to pick up his tea again, still very much inside Sherlock's 'personal space'.

"What should we do about kissing?" John asked softly, leaning helplessly forwards again, his eyes flickering down to Sherlock's lips. "I probably should have checked last time, but I thought it would be helpful for you if I just did it – then I realised I should have asked, so I kept my mouth shut. Would you…" he paused, cleared his throat gently, leaned even closer. "Would you like to kiss properly this time? Or just keep it as we did it last night?"

Sherlock swallowed involuntarily. "I think it would be more helpful to do it properly," he said, cursing inwardly at the breathy quality to his voice. "As long as you're comfortable."

John's smile widened into something slightly dark, reminiscent of some kind of massive predator. "Oh, I'm _very_ comfortable," he reassured him, and then he leaned that last bit forwards and kissed him.

Sherlock was expecting it this time, and yet it still caught him slightly by surprise. John's body boxed his in against the table, his legs on either side of Sherlock's, his arms on the table beside his waist, his lips pressing commandingly against Sherlock's. He shuddered and gasped at the feel of it, John's strong chest warm against him, the tiny rasp of stubble against his chin, and his mouth opened slightly of its own accord. John's lips curled into a slight smile against his, a smug little noise bubbling up in his throat, and he tilted his head slightly to fit their mouths together easier.

Sherlock's hands clamped down onto John's back, tugging him closer, one hand travelling up to brush into the hair at the nape of the doctor's neck. John had implied he would use tongue this time, hadn't he? Or had _proper kissing_ meant that there was something _else_ John would do this time that he had not last time, another element to kissing to which Sherlock had been hitherto unexposed? He tried opening his own mouth further, inviting John's tongue into him, but the doctor did not take the bait, remaining resolutely tight-lipped.

It took a moment or two for Sherlock to realise what he was doing. John was taking control again. Because Sherlock _expected_ John to try to overwhelm him, he was steadily refusing to do just that, keeping control of the kiss firmly away from him.

He whimpered at the realisation, his body relaxing, surrendering to John's command.

And John _pulled away._ "There you are," he said softly, pressing a rough and sloppy kiss on Sherlock's cheekbone, more teeth than tongue, his face settling in the groove of Sherlock's shoulder as his head was pushed away. It was a tiny bit patronising, and Sherlock felt a jolt of irritation that reminded him – not that he had _forgotten_ – that this was not how John would normally kiss, that he was pretending to be someone else, pretending _Sherlock_ was someone else. He hitched his seductive smile back onto his face as John pulled back again to look him in the eyes. "God, you're beautiful," the doctor rumbled, and Sherlock affected a shy look.

John's hand fixed itself into his hair and tugged their lips together again; this time his tongue probed out almost straightaway, nudging against Sherlock's lips until he parted them quickly to let it in. He was trapped by it, by John's body and his mouth, unable to move but not wanting to, clutching helplessly at the short greying hair and revelling in the warmth of John's skull underneath. John was _good_ at this. Sherlock had kissed a fair few people in his time, but most of them had only done it as an intermediary step, a means to an end. John kissed as though he had all the time in the world, as though he had no further intention, no expectations, as though he could make Sherlock come from this alone.

Actually, John had started up a subtle rocking, grinding motion with his crotch against Sherlock's, so he probably _could_ come from this alone, in time. He would have been embarrassed about the state of his trousers if he could not feel that John was also half-hard. _Simple physical stimulation_ , he told himself. _Perfectly natural bodily response._

Finally, when Sherlock was panting heavily through his nose against John's cheek, his flatmate broke the kiss, sucking briefly on his neck instead. Sherlock could feel him trying to catch his breath, his thin, swollen lips resting against Sherlock's skin. "Well," John murmured into his neck, his tongue darting out to lick the beginnings of sweat away, "this is certainly the point at which I would suggest we move to somewhere more private."

Sherlock chuckled into his hair. "I think that would be wise," he agreed, his low, seductive voice ruined slightly by the fact that he hadn't quite managed to catch his own breath. "That is, assuming you still _can_ move somewhere private without embarrassing yourself."

John laughed, leaning his forehead on Sherlock's collarbone and looking down at him. The jeans he had worn to work were his nice ones, a deep indigo denim that clung appealingly to the curve of his arse and thighs, the front of which was bulging slightly with the weight of John's budding erection. He reached down and adjusted it with a self-conscious little chuckle. Sherlock laughed, a carefree, too-loud noise that made the doctor start slightly. John reached up to touch the lock of hair that fell over his forehead, much the same way as one might stroke back a woman's fringe. Sherlock smiled shyly. "Shall we go, then?" he asked, one hand drifting back to the laptop behind him.

"I think we definitely should, yes," John replied, pressing another hard, closed-mouthed kiss to his lips.

They went back to the front door first – Sherlock tried not to be impressed that John had not needed to be told his reasons for the move – and grabbed their coats from the hook by the door. John held Sherlock's out for him to slip into, and then grabbed a handful of his arse and squeezed it, hard.

Sherlock gasped and pretended to look affronted, but when John relaxed his grip he didn't remove his hand, and it was difficult to keep up the expression when John was touching him in such an intimate place. After a moment he gave it up entirely in favour of a wry smile. "Sorry," John said brightly, letting go of Sherlock's bottom to shrug on his own coat and not sounding in the least apologetic. "Couldn't resist. I imagine whatever dress you might have been wearing would display your arse to great effect."

"You _lecherous_ man," Sherlock teased in return. Once the doctor had fastened his coat properly, he shot him one last seductive smile and turned on his heel back to the bedroom.

John jumped on him, knocking him into the wall and slamming their lips together again. Sherlock's head narrowly missed the coat-hooks on the wall as John's tongue pushed insistently into his mouth as though conducting a strip-search at a prison. He moaned, relaxing against the wall, his hands seeking the soft static of John's hair once more.

"This – _mmph!_ – this isn't really any more private than the bar," Sherlock gasped in the tiny moments when John's lips were far enough from his that he could draw breath and speak. "And it wasn't in the statements."

The doctor grinned cheekily. "I know it wasn't," he replied and licked a long, messy stripe up Sherlock's cheek. "But I bet he wanted it to be."

Sherlock waited until he turned around before wiping the saliva off his cheek with his palm. He personally wouldn't mind if John decided to give every _inch_ of his body a tongue-bath like an attentive mother cat, but he didn't think that it would have gone down too well with the murderer, especially not in front of the entire bar. John did not miss the movement. He wondered whether Montgomery would have.

John's hand asserted itself into the small of his back and remained there as they crossed the living room, pausing briefly to snatch the laptop from the table, and the army doctor courteously opened the door to Sherlock's bedroom. He had not bothered to open the curtains when he had given up on sleep that morning, but he had remade the bed when he had decided to continue this exercise with John, so the room was in soft yellow half-light, one corner of the bedspread turned down invitingly, a brand new roll of bondage tape on the bedside table. John didn't spare the room more than a cursory glance before he had Sherlock up against the doorframe, yanking at the coat he had just slid up Sherlock's arms and stroking his finger over the sliver of delicate collarbone that he exposed. Sherlock shuddered at his touch and moved his own hands to the buttons on his coat, easing John's away before they ripped something, throwing the laptop carefully onto the bed.

He resisted the urge to pick up his coat when it hit the floor in a heavy puddle of dark fabric, instead focussing on opening John's coat, with its button and zipper mechanism that seemed so ridiculously complicated. John chuckled at his difficulty.

"My clothes not fancy enough for you?" he teased, dipping back in for kiss after biting, domineering kiss. Sherlock grunted in frustration. John reached up and grabbed his hands. "Shh. Let me do it."

Sherlock let him go, flushing slightly at John's fondly patronising look. For a moment, he toyed with taking off his shirt as well, but decided against it. The less realistic they could make this pretence, the less likely Sherlock was to forget that they _were_ pretending and say or do something he might regret. He sat down on the bed, picking up his laptop and tapping out the things he had noticed so far: things John had done that had made him annoyed, patronised, things that had made him shiver with unrestrained lust.

He stopped when John's jacket hit the floor, expecting the doctor to join him on the bed, but John merely raised one eyebrow suggestively and pulled his oatmeal jumper over his head as well, giving it a jaunty wiggle before dropping it on the ground alongside his jacket and Sherlock's coat. Sherlock gave him a mockingly resigned smile as he put aside the laptop, as though he had expected John to be childish about undressing. John grinned back.

They had not thought to put shoes on as a part of the act, and so John crawled over him onto the middle of the bed without hesitation, the predatory smile firmly back on his face. Sherlock whimpered and fell onto his back as John reached his chest, letting a deep chuckle form in the doctor's stomach at the submission. And then John was kissing him again, dropping his body so that it pressed Sherlock into the bed, constricting his breathing, and this was _so_ much better when horizontal that Sherlock was dizzy with it, his hands coming up automatically to find a grip on the doctor's _beautifully_ firm buttocks –

"I don't think so," John told him, reaching back for Sherlock's hands and replacing them above his head. "I think you should keep these _here_."

Sherlock's eyes flickered – deliberately, though he did not think it looked it – to the bedside table, where the black bondage tape sat innocuously against the lamp. John followed the look and laughed, temporarily collapsing so that his face was buried in Sherlock's neck. "You bought that especially for this?"

He wondered what John would do if he said _not especially for this_ , or _I might find other uses for it_ , or something else that indicated he would be interested in using it recreationally himself, but instead he shrugged. "I thought it might come in handy," he admitted wryly. John blinked, then laughed again and snatched the tape from the table, testing it between his fingers.

"Don't we need… I mean, is it going to stick to your skin?" he asked, already eyeing Sherlock's wrists as though he was imagining them bound with the stuff.

Sherlock raised a languid eyebrow. "It's better quality than the stuff they actually used. This will only stick to itself, not to your skin. _My_ skin," he corrected himself. John grinned, his eyes gleaming at the correction.

"Well then," he said darkly. The tape ripped away from the roll with an ominous noise; Sherlock's stomach swooped in anticipation. "Like this?" John asked, stretching out in order to hold Sherlock's arms against the two corners of the bed.

This had the consequence of pushing John's weight harder into Sherlock and his face into Sherlock's neck; Sherlock laughed. "Yes, like that. Maybe one at a time, though."

John snorted and let one hand go in order to sit on Sherlock's chest and strap the other to the railing of his headboard. Sherlock found himself almost face-to-face with John's groin and breathed in sharply; John was completely hard, straining against his jeans. He wanted to reach out the hand that John wasn't using and touch it, stroke it, see what noises the doctor might make. He forced himself to breathe out again. Perhaps it was a good thing that John was tying his hands to the headboard.

"Did she have her feet tied down, too?" John asked. Sherlock forced his eyes up to his friend's face; thankfully, John did not look down at him until he had lifted his gaze from his crotch. Sherlock shook his head. "All right, then."

He grinned briefly at the doctor, who grinned back, moving into his former position with his body stretched out along the length of Sherlock's. Sherlock spread his legs further so that John could slot neatly between them, sucking and nipping none-too-gently on his neck. "No marks," Sherlock whispered, tilting his neck away slightly. John hummed in something that sounded like disappointment, licking at the spot he had been biting, then he kissed it gently and wriggled, shifting his body ever-so-slightly until their groins aligned and John's erection was pressing against his own.

Sherlock inhaled sharply, his hips thrusting up automatically. John smiled, and then he was biting at his lower lip, thrusting his tongue harshly between Sherlock's own teeth. Then he pulled away.

"Now, if I had someone like you so completely at my mercy," the doctor purred, sliding his chest down Sherlock's body. The friction as he slid across Sherlock's groin made him whimper helplessly. "I would start _here_."

Sherlock struggled to catch his breath as John's eyes fixed on his crotch where his cock was struggling for attention. He didn't comment on the fact that this was not supposed to be for _their_ sexual pleasure, probably because he was in the same state. "You don't know what she was like," he reminded him breathlessly.

John blinked. "I suppose not," he said, sounding surprised. "I was imagining her to be like you." He glanced from Sherlock's face to his erection and back again. "I'd still start here. If I had someone tied up I'd want to make them _beg_ for me." Sherlock groaned as John dipped his head and nuzzled his nose over the bulge in his trousers. "People think that getting a blowjob makes _you_ powerful, but it doesn't. It makes the _other_ person powerful. The things you can do to a person with your mouth are more powerful than anything you could do by forcing them to pleasure you."

"Thank you, John," Sherlock said shortly, every muscle in his thighs struggling with the effort of keeping his hips still. John's words were flooding him with ideas of _the things John could do to him with his mouth_ and it was increasingly difficult to concentrate on the role-play. "I _have_ given and received a blowjob before."

_That_ made the doctor hesitate for a moment, his face freezing before he forced himself to relax, to act as though the information did not bother him. Sherlock caught himself before he smirked. "Why does everyone assume I'm a virgin?" he asked in mock-outrage.

John laughed, but it sounded forced. "You just… don't seem to be interested in sex at all," he said, shrugging lightly. He rested his chin on the sensitive spot just beneath the head of Sherlock's penis, grinning as Sherlock made a strangled noise and shifted his hips restlessly.

"I'm not," he replied unevenly. "Usually. But sex is a biological imperative. Some experts think it's more important to us than food." John made an exaggerated expression of interest and folded his arms beneath his chin, stroking firmly up the length of Sherlock's cock as he did so. Sherlock made an impatient noise. "The purpose of this exercise was _not_ to examine my sexual history."

John smiled again. "Partly because I didn't know you _had_ a sexual history." The expression made it perfectly clear that he was teasing on purpose, and Sherlock realised quite suddenly that his irritated outburst had been only one step away from begging. _I'd want to make them beg for me._ Just like their first kiss of the evening, John was deliberately deviating from the 'script' of the role-play in order to make sure that Sherlock had the same reactions to his actions as the murderer would have, if this were not scripted at all. He really didn't give John's manipulation skills enough credit, and he _definitely_ wasn't going to examine the way that sent an almost painful throb of arousal to his groin.

"All right," John said finally, lifting his head from Sherlock's groin. "I'd wait until you were an absolute mess, and _then_ I'd think about fucking you."

Sherlock sighed as his flatmate lifted himself onto his hands and knees and crawled over him again. He reached out for him automatically, his arms wrenching slightly as the tape prevented him from moving. John's kiss this time was gentler, lazier, as though he had all the time in the world. It was more _intimate_ , somehow, and Sherlock tried to end it as subtly as he could without John noticing that it was making him uneasy. He didn't want to kiss John like that - _properly_ , like it meant something, like he and John should really kiss - until it _did_ mean something. Assuming, of course, that John would ever want it to mean something.

He tilted his hips up until their erections were aligned again, earning a tiny hitch of breath from the doctor. Surely John's response to all of this was more than just physical stimulation?

John breathed out slowly against his lips. "Now," he murmured, stretching his torso languidly until Sherlock heard a crunch from his bad shoulder and winced. "I would take you."

Sherlock's entire body flushed hot at the suggestion, but he managed to keep his body still. "Show me," he murmured back before he had time to wonder whether it would be smarter to call the game off at this point. Surely pretending to actually shag each other wouldn't add anything to Sherlock's already considerable discoveries about the case?

_It might_ , something terribly masochistic inside of him insisted. He could feel John smile against his cheek, his body still shifting, his hips undulating in tiny thrusts against Sherlock's.

"Like this," the doctor almost whispered, shifting back up onto his knees, running his hands down Sherlock's body before replacing one beside his head and using the other to hold Sherlock's hips steady as he thrust firmly forwards, his erection rubbing the fabric of Sherlock's pants against the cleft of his arse, nudging his perineum and his testicles. Sherlock cried out softly as though John had actually entered his body, his legs wrapping around John's waist and holding on, his own hips lifting to meet the doctor's as they kept thrusting, setting up a slow, hard rhythm. John's hand left his hip, cupping the curve of his jaw briefly before it settled back beside his head to hold him up.

John grunted quietly with every harsh thrust. His eyes were screwed tightly shut as though to look at Sherlock would distract him from his rhythm, would make him falter or forget or finish. Sherlock shut his own eyes and bit his lip, trying not to focus on the pleasure their movements was stirring and swelling in his own body but on the _act_ , the exercise, the reason they were there at all – but looking back at John's face he wasn't sure the doctor was remembering it either, lost in the feeling of rubbing their groins together in increasingly quick motions.

He wanted the use of his hands, because he was sure that just a few touches to the parts of his cock that John's rocking wasn't reaching would cause him to come, but he didn't _want_ to come because that would be embarrassing, because this was only meant to be pretend. He wanted John's lips on his again, wanted their chests rubbing together, wanted John closer and harder and _more._

"John," he started, still not sure whether he would beg for the doctor to free his hands or kiss him.

Abruptly, John's eyes flew open and he ceased the rocking of his hips, looking shocked, as though he had forgotten Sherlock was there at all. "Fuck," he swore quietly. Sherlock tried to arrange his face into a calm and neutral expression – at least tried to arrange it away from one that betrayed how close he had been to orgasm – as the doctor sat back on his heels and drew a deep breath. "I'm so sorry, Sherlock, I just got… carried away."

Sherlock tried to smile unaffectedly. "Quite understandable, John," he said lightly. "The situation was… affecting."

John almost laughed again. "Yes," he commented, his eyes flickering involuntarily to the state of Sherlock's crotch. "Yes, it was. Did you, um – did you get everything you needed from it? Your theory, was it…"

"Oh, yes," Sherlock confirmed, forcing a bright tone of voice. "Yes, you did brilliantly. I believe my theory is not only plausible but almost definitely correct." John smiled at him. There was a heartbeat's awkward pause in which Sherlock considered throwing the entire façade away and begging the doctor to finish him off. Then he cleared his throat briskly. "If you could just cut my hands free, John, I'll write up my findings and send some enquiries to a few contacts."

The ex-army medic flushed and hurried to cut the tape around Sherlock's hands. "Do they feel all right?" he asked, rubbing his wrists gently. Sherlock could feel indentations in his skin where he had struggled against the tape. "Circulation okay?"

He smiled. "They're fine, thank you, John."

John nodded, picking up their outer layers of clothing from the floor as Sherlock picked up the laptop and started typing. "Right," he said, not nearly as awkward as Sherlock had feared he might be but not entirely comfortable either. "I'll just… go and start dinner, then. Chicken all right with you?"

Sherlock made an appreciative noise; to ease the awkwardness a little, he looked up at his friend and smiled warmly. "Thank you," he said sincerely. From John's returning smile, he knew the doctor could tell he meant it for more than the offer to cook.

He tried to focus on his conclusions once John had left the room, but his cock was still throbbing and images of John above him kept flashing behind his eyelids. He shifted irritably, knowing that he really ought to have foreseen this problem. Perhaps he ought to…

His hand made its way between his legs and pushed restlessly at his erection, meaning to only stroke once in the hopes that it would calm down, but that one stroke set off a burst of relieved pleasure and he could not refrain from rubbing himself again, and then again, the pleasure building until he threw his head back hard enough to bruise it against the wall and came with a bitten-off moan.

Sighing, Sherlock tipped the computer off his lap and stared resignedly at the growing damp patch on the surface of his trousers. He would have to change them before he went back into the living-room.

John was not as bright as he was, but he was not stupid enough to miss that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. Next chapter probably won't be as long, smutty, or fast, but I still think I've proved that I can write quickly when I'm inspired.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. It's the last week of the semester here, which means that I've written three essays in the last two weeks. I finished this while procrastinating from study for the two tests I have on Thursday. The plus side of this is that after Thursday I'm done for the year so nothing to do but update! More sex soon, I promise.

John was in the kitchen when Sherlock emerged from his bedroom, studiously cubing a chicken breast. He smiled at Sherlock when he leant past him to fill a glass from the tap. Sherlock saw his eyes flicker subtly from his face – the flush of orgasm most likely still fading from his cheeks – to his trousers, a noticeably different cut to the ones he had been wearing mere minutes ago when John had left him. A tiny smile made itself evident on his face, but he didn't comment; most likely because his own face was similarly flushed and his jeans bore evidence of being hastily rebuttoned. Sherlock's shame at his loss of control was mollified slightly, seeing the reflection of it in his flatmate.

They ate in relative quiet; John related a story of one of his younger patients who had managed to get a fairly sizeable McDonald's toy up his nose that made Sherlock laugh, and he, when asked, told John about his experience in the shop where he had bought the bondage tape. He'd originally reached for the purple one that had looked most similar to the one that the victim had used, but a bubbly female sales assistant had assured him that he didn't want that one and redirected him to the black stuff. He had felt slightly odd in the shop: most of the other shoppers had been couples or terrifically awkward youths. As soon as he had walked in, he had wished he were not wearing his long, black coat.

They didn't talk about what had happened, how it had affected the both of them. John's eyes lingered on him more often than usual when he thought Sherlock was looking at his food, and for his part Sherlock felt the stares burn through his skin and make it flush pink. He hadn't felt quite this caught-out since he was fourteen and Mycroft had found him in the laundry desperately trying to wash his pyjamas before his mother found them.

John insisted that he help clean up after they had eaten, which devolved rapidly into a rather childish battle of John splashing him with the dishwater and Sherlock flicking him with the tea-towel in response, and so it was in amiable, slightly giggly quiet that they collapsed on the sofa, John reaching automatically for the television remote and then realising that the coffee table was on the other side of the room. He sighed. "Sherlock, can we…"

Sherlock had no intention of moving the furniture, so he made a contented noise and stretched out, throwing his feet over John's lap as though he hadn't noticed the start of the request. John tried to glare at him, but after a moment he sighed and sank back into his seat. "Can I use my computer, then?" he asked.

"I'm waiting for an email from a man I met on a case last year about clients of his matching the victim's description," Sherlock replied. "I'll need it back immediately if that comes in." He lifted his feet nonetheless for John to get up and retrieve the laptop from the desk. John allowed him to lift his feet back onto his denim-clad thighs with a wry grin when he sat down, promptly resting the laptop on Sherlock's ankles and wriggling into a more comfortable position in his seat. Sherlock could see the home screen of his blog reflected in the mirror on the mantelpiece.

He smiled contentedly and settled his shoulders back against the arm of the sofa, closing his eyes and allowing the happy domesticity to fill him up until he drifted away.

" _Sherlock_."

He awoke with a start to John's hand on his shoulder, shaking gently, his blue eyes fond. "I'm off to bed now," the doctor said gently. "You should head there, too. You'll get a bad back if you sleep on the sofa too much, it's really not long enough for you."

Sherlock smiled at his flatmate, sleep slowing down his body somewhat, and stretched indolently. John's eyes widened gratifyingly as his shirt strained against his chest. "Thank you, John," he murmured sleepily. John smiled back, and for a moment Sherlock thought he might bend down and kiss him goodnight and tilted his face up gently to accommodate the gesture.

John didn't, though, merely held out a hand to help him off the sofa. Flushing, Sherlock took it, careful to overshoot the gesture a little and bump gently into his flatmate's good shoulder, apologising with a quiet voice and yawning helplessly again. He took a moment to consider that before he met John he never would have allowed himself to be so vulnerable in front of another person, and yet now falling asleep and waking up slowly with John seemed easier than doing it alone.

There was a pause as they looked at each other, and then John smiled again and said, "Goodnight," as though he was reluctant to leave. Sherlock returned the line softly, and then the good doctor turned on his heel and made his way up the stairs.

When he was gone, Sherlock glanced at his violin. Mrs Hudson had ever-so-subtly gifted him the sheet music for Sarasate's _Zapateado_ , and he had intended to attempt it today before the case and its associated dilemmas had overtaken his mind. It was a complicated, punishingly fast piece, though, and the first time he played it – especially when he had just emerged from sleep – it would sound screechy and clumsy and would not at all make for a happy John.

Besides, he can't have been asleep for longer than two hours. John was always telling him that four was the minimum he should be getting, and that was when he slept _every night_ , which he hadn't, so perhaps he ought to go to bed and try again. He cast one last wistful glance at the violin, yawned, and then conceded the point and went to bed.

Lestrade rang early the next morning, startling Sherlock out of sleep. "Sherlock Holmes," he answered it, unable to keep the tiny hint of bleariness out of his voice as he tried to blink himself awake.

"Hi," the DI said pointlessly. "Look, there's – hang on, did I _wake you up_?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, already climbing out of bed and shedding the pants he had slept in. "Well, Lestrade, it is… seven o'clock in the morning," he replied reasonably, glancing at his alarm clock and trying not to sound surprised at the time. Had he _really_ slept the whole night through?

"Yeah, but you're _you_ ," the policeman replied, still sounding amusedly surprised. "John routinely complains about you being up at all hours of the morning. I just assumed you didn't sleep."

He sighed. "Everyone sleeps _sometimes._ Did you actually have a reason for calling, or did you just want someone awake to talk to?"

Lestrade laughed. "If I wanted someone to _talk to_ , you definitely wouldn't be the one I'd call, awake or not. Look, there's been another murder. Sally thinks it's the same killer as the one we had at the beginning of the week, but they're a bit different. Thought you'd like to come and have a look."

"How altruistic of you," Sherlock commented dryly. "All right, text me the address and we'll leave in twenty minutes."

He hung up on Lestrade's snort, already riffling through his drawers for a clean pair of pants and trousers; he grabbed a shirt on his way out of his bedroom door, still flinging it over his shoulders as he stopped to click the kettle on. He was about to shout up the stairs for John when he remembered Mrs Hudson's reprimand the last time he woke her before eight a.m., and clambered up the stairs two at a time instead.

"John?"

There was an indistinct murmur from the other side of the door as he rapped on it; taking that as consent, Sherlock opened it and moved through into the doctor's bedroom, averting his eyes just in case John was doing something he wouldn't want Sherlock to see – it wouldn't be the first time he had burst into the room to catch a glimpse of a healthy-sized erection as John struggled to hide it from him, invariably leaving Sherlock desperately trying to cover a blush and look away before his own body began to react – but when he looked back John was sitting up in bed, clearly having been woken from rather deep sleep.

The doctor blinked at Sherlock's torso, reminding him of the fact that he hadn't buttoned his shirt as he came upstairs. "Is this a dream?" he asked, his voice dark and husky with sleep.

"I'm afraid not, John," Sherlock lamented wryly, buttoning his shirt briskly and grinning at his flatmate, wondering shyly whether John often had dreams which involved him half-dressed. "You need to get up, there's been another murder."

John sighed, running his hand down his face, but he swung his legs out of bed nonetheless. "What, like the one on Tuesday? The femme fatale?"

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow at his colloquialism, but nodded sharply. "Donovan certainly believes so, although it seems Lestrade has his doubts. I suppose we'll see." He flicked out his shirtsleeves and began buttoning his cuffs with a flourish. "Kettle's on. Tea or coffee?"

A surprised look met his eyes when he looked up. "Are you offering to make it?" his flatmate asked.

"No, I was wondering which I should expect," Sherlock replied, affecting a slightly affronted look. "Of course I'm offering to make it. I'm already mostly dressed. I expect you'll want to shower."

John stared at him for a moment. "You're not going to drug me again, are you?" he asked suspiciously.

Sherlock groaned in frustration. "It was only a suggestion, John, I won't bother if it's such a big problem for you."

"No," John countered quickly, clapping him gratefully on the shoulder on his way to the dresser, "coffee would be lovely. Thank you." Sherlock smiled weakly and left him to it, jumping back down the stairs.

Sleeping was actually quite nice, he mused as he rooted around for take-out cups in the cupboard. It certainly slowed down his reactions for a few minutes as he woke up and an hour or so as he settled down to it, but he felt relentlessly, irritatingly good this morning. No wonder John had been so cheerful the morning before.

John, apparently, noticed too. "You're very upbeat this morning," he commented, towelling his hair thoughtfully as he entered the kitchen. "Sleep well, did you?"

"Tremendously," Sherlock confirmed, holding out John's coffee. "And then I was woken up by a possible lead on my case. Perfect predictors of a good day."

The doctor grinned as he took the cup of coffee, sipping tentatively and then smiling at the lack of sugar and hallucinogens. "Right," he said cheerfully. "So where are we going?"

* * *

Sally Donovan stood in front of the corpse as though attempting to shield it from their view, her arms crossed and her usual disapproving frown fixed onto her face. Lestrade cleared his throat at her when they came into the room, giving her a pointed look. Sherlock smirked as she scoffed in annoyance and flounced away.

The second man had undressed slightly further than the first, and therefore looked a little less dignified in death, his torso bare and his purposefully-ripped jeans shoved down around his thighs. He was younger, too, obviously less personally successful than Montgomery. Rich parents, Sherlock guessed. Those were £200 jeans he'd bought ripped like that, and actual diamonds gleaming in three places on his left ear. They weren't the only examples of careless wealth flaunted about his person, and the bedroom itself was even worse. The degree to which the man displayed the wealth that he had inherited suggested huge levels of arrogance – he imagined a youth entirely used to female attention. Dominance would probably be more than natural to him, and it was completely possible he could get carried away more than once. Sherlock allowed one corner of his mouth to quirk upwards humourlessly.

He had been left face down on the bed, the twin globes of his glaringly-white arse presented quite comically. It seemed as though the murderer had simply cast him aside once he was dead. A quick examination of his neck showed that he had been strangled, and the –

"John."

The doctor raised his eyebrows expectantly; the tiniest gesture toward the body brought him over to bend and peer at the ligature marks on the man's neck. "Fingernails," John pronounced. Sherlock nodded shortly. The doctor plucked Sherlock's pocket magnifier from his hand to look closer. "From the angle it looks like she was holding him up by his neck. Probably tried to overpower him but he was stronger than her – but that would mean she had both hands around his neck and he had both free." John reached right into the inside pocket of Sherlock's Belstaff and pulled out his handkerchief, using it to lift the victim's hand closer to his eyes. "His fingernails are clean," he said thoughtfully. "He didn't try to get her hands away from him, so he must have been able to reach her, focused on hitting her instead of defending himself. I imagine she'll have considerable bruises."

He straightened, handing magnifier and handkerchief back to Sherlock, who had to frantically remind himself to breathe. He had only intended the doctor to confirm the crescent-shaped fingernail marks, not to point out their angle or assess any other aspects of the body. John's ever-increasing powers of deduction left him oddly breathless and the room was suddenly uncomfortably warm. He cleared his throat quickly. "Yes, very good, John, you're really getting the hang of this. Of course, the fact that he didn't try to remove her hands also suggests that she's smaller than he is – supported by the fact that she couldn't overpower him or he'd be on his back, and he doesn't look particularly strong or intimidating. So she's petite, must be attractive to get both of these rich and arrogant dominants interested in her… oh, and she's blonde, but we knew that already." He lifted with the handkerchief a long blonde hair from just below the pillow. "Call around hospitals and see if anyone who fits that description turned up last night with extreme facial bruises. And it's probably worth running her DNA through the system, but I doubt you'll find a match."

Lestrade carefully bagged the hair, frowning at the corpse. "Did you have any other theories, then?" he asked.

Sherlock shrugged. "John and I explored a theory last night," he said, studiously not looking at John as he said it for fear of the expression on his friend's face. "I sent messages to contacts that could help, but I haven't received replies yet – I'll call them once we get out of here. Knowing that she'll have bruises will help. Lestrade, help me roll him over," he commanded briskly. The three of them carefully manoeuvred the body onto its back, John wincing as the bedsheets stuck awkwardly to the corpse's groin area. Sherlock hummed absently at it. "She must have removed the condom from the same angle," he said. "What made you think this wasn't the same killer?"

The DI frowned awkwardly. "Mainly the lack of the tape that was on the last one."

Sherlock glanced again at the headboard; there was indeed no trace of the deep purple tape that had been on Montgomery's bed. "That doesn't necessarily mean anything," he said. "Good-quality bondage tape isn't supposed to stick to anything except itself, he could easily have used better stuff than Montgomery. Or used a scarf or tie or rope instead of tape. And not everyone who's into BDSM plays with bondage anyway."

"Or he could have wanted to show his mental domination of her rather than his physical domination," John interjected, looking up from the wastepaper bin. Sherlock blinked at him, aware that the other police officers in the room were staring at him too. The doctor coughed slightly awkwardly. "He could have ordered her to keep her hands there rather than just tied them there - rely on her mental submission to him rather than forcing her down. Has the same end effect, but gives the dominant partner a lot more control."

John's knowledge of BDSM techniques made Sherlock pause for a moment, not realising he was staring until the doctor lifted an eyebrow at him. He forced a careless smile. "That would certainly allow for the element of surprise - he had no idea when she would begin to disobey his orders and move her hands. It's definitely worth exploring, thank you, John."

The doctor smirked at his repeated use of the word 'exploring'. Sherlock was momentarily grateful that Lestrade was looking in the opposite direction as he allowed himself to imagine the scenario.

 _Something_ was going on there. He desperately hoped it was what he thought it was.

"No, Lestrade," he said brightly in the meantime, clicking his pocket magnifier shut after examining a series of marks across one hip that turned out to be impressions from the chain on his trousers. "It's definitely the same killer. Just because they didn't use the same type of bondage equipment doesn't mean anything – nobody carries a roll of bondage tape around in their handbag on the off-chance they'll meet someone interested in tying them up."

John snorted. "Not _cheap_ bondage tape, anyway. If you're that prepared, you're going to want the good stuff."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I'll make a few calls, John and I will investigate a few other angles so that we can find her more easily," he said briskly, avoiding John's eyes again. Lestrade looked suspiciously from one to the other nonetheless before apparently deciding he didn't want to know and giving up.

"So that's it? I'll get Donovan to put a notice out to the hospitals and that's all we can do?" he asked, sighing resignedly.

"Relax," Sherlock told him. "Either you'll find her or we will."

John caught up with him at the bottom of the stairs out of the apartment building, his shoulder bumping comfortingly against Sherlock's upper arm. Sherlock shot him a grin as he opened the building's front door with a sweeping gesture, indicating the doctor should move ahead of him. "So, John," he said brightly, closing the door behind them with a snap. "You're not busy this afternoon, are you?"

The doctor's face split into a wry smile. "Looks like I might be getting that way," he replied easily. Sherlock laughed.

"Well, I have to call the people I emailed last night as soon as we get home," he said as they slid into a taxi. "A cup of tea would be lovely."

John rolled his eyes, but he nodded his assent. His hand rested calmly on the empty seat between them, palm down, looking slightly out of place, as though that was not where it naturally wanted to rest. Sherlock considered reaching out and placing his own hand on top of it, but decided against it.

 _Not yet_ , he told himself sternly. _Not just yet._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer than I expected, but I discovered Green Wing, which I can't quite discover why I'm so enchanted by but which has made me cry with laughter and also just cry.

Sherlock glanced up at his flatmate through his eyelashes, burying his nose coquettishly in his teacup. John, who had slouched carelessly against the opposite counter, smiled widely back at him, the arrogant and indulgent smile of someone incredibly confident of their own attraction, so much so that he didn't believe he needed to move at all in order to pick up a woman. It wasn't a good look on John at all.

He waited until he had finished his tea before sidling up to his friend, shyly keeping his eyes lowered until they were close enough to touch. "Want to buy me another?" he asked, tilting his mug in John's direction so that the doctor could see that it was empty and smiling disarmingly.

John grinned. "Why not," he replied airily, making a gesture towards where the barman might have been. They had agreed that someone such as the second victim - Charles Trent, his name had been, but it wasn't really important - probably would have frequented clubs more than the quiet bar Montgomery had been singled out at, and so John had found some kind of ridiculous music with a baseline that made Sherlock want to throw up and it was playing _just_ on the safe side of too-loud so that the neighbours didn't get angry. "I'll buy you a drink if you dance with me," John negotiated, leaning forwards slightly as if to trap him against the bar.

Sherlock kept his ground, implying that he wouldn't _mind_ being trapped against the bar by John. "It's a deal," he said. "I'd probably introduce myself about now," he added as they pushed away from the kitchen counter.

"Lovely to meet you," John replied as though he _had_ introduced himself, managing to affect just enough of a careless air to suggest he had already forgotten the name. "I'm Charlie."

They moved into the only available space in the kitchen to dance, John crowding into Sherlock's personal space, gyrating his hips in time to the too-fast beat. Sherlock didn't dance like this. He froze for the barest of moments before adapting something in between mimicking John's movements and those that he had seen other people make at clubs in the past, his back to the doctor's front.

John chuckled. "You don't dance very often, do you," he commented. He used his own voice rather than the one he had been using against the counter, so Sherlock answered truthfully.

"Do I look like I frequented clubs as a teenager?" he replied sarcastically, trying to lean his head back against John's shoulder but not managing because of the difference in their heights.

He had turned his back on John to avoid letting the doctor feel that he had been half-hard with anticipation since they had left the cab, but John grabbed his hips and pulled him flush against his chest, pressing his groin into Sherlock's left buttock. He wasn't as aroused as Sherlock himself, but he was definitely interested. "Relax," he murmured, his voice back to the arrogant drawl he'd been using earlier. Sherlock let out a shaky breath and let himself feel the way John's body was moving instead of worrying about his own.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered after a moment. "You're far too short to play the man of the two of us in any kind of dance."

John snorted. "Well, _you_ were the one who insisted on pretending to be the woman," he reminded him. "I'd say you have more in common with the grown-up child who thinks the world revolves around him, too, but there you go."

Sherlock mock-bristled at the comment. "Unfortunately my playing the man in this scenario would completely defeat the purpose of the exercise," he retorted idly, turning in John's grip until they were facing one another. "And I thought you were doing remarkably well in that role."

In reply, John let go of his hips in order to pull his head down into a harsh kiss. It was immediately obvious that he was in control of the kiss, and that he would not be letting it go. Sherlock relaxed into it, forcing himself back into the killer's persona and not allowing himself to imagine a life where John settled all their arguments with rough sex. He shuddered, pressing his body closer but not daring to move his hands, fluttering them uselessly by his sides until John grabbed one and wrapped it around his waist, replacing his own hand on Sherlock's buttock. They were still moving gently with the music as they kissed, and the movements created a tiny friction of their groins against each other's bodies until what they were doing wouldn't be considered appropriate dance-floor behaviour anywhere Sherlock had ever been. John didn't seem to notice.

Eventually he let go, his hands unwinding from the tight grip they had had on Sherlock's hair and bum. They didn't break apart; John merely gave Sherlock a moment to pant harshly into his scalp before fixing his lips against Sherlock's outstretched neck. Sherlock gasped, his body sagging into John's, forgetting the music and the dance. He let the less-than-gentle sucking and biting continue for a moment before pulling away, trying uneasily to resume the rotation of their hips. "Please don't leave marks - I have to work tomorrow."

John growled low in his throat, a noise that made Sherlock's stomach twinge uncomfortably. "I'll mark you if I want to," he whispered, standing on tiptoe so that his mouth was on Sherlock's ear. Sherlock waited until his face was out of view before allowing himself to smile at the height discrepancy. The smile faltered in favour of a helpless noise as John's teeth sank violently into his neck.

He knew that the bite wouldn't actually mark him, but the fact that _Charlie_ had done it when Sherlock had expressly asked him not to made him fight to keep the irritation off his face. Even in a dominant/submissive dynamic – he wouldn't call this any kind of relationship – there were things that one did not do, liberties one did not take, requests that one did not ignore. He completely agreed with John's assumption that Charles Trent wouldn't quite understand the difference between BDSM and sexual abuse, but that didn't mean he liked it. He smiled weakly at John nonetheless when he was set back on his feet, conveying submission as clearly as he could. " _Charlie,"_ he whispered.

The music changed to something slower, less frantic; John gave his speakers a tiny glance before smirking confidently at Sherlock. "How about that drink?" he asked.

Sherlock smiled back, lowering his eyes carefully. "Sounds lovely."

"So," John engaged as they skirted around the kitchen table, back to the bar and John's lukewarm half-cup of tea. "You must not come here very often."

He inflected the statement like a question; Sherlock smiled and looked out over an imaginary crowd. "I was here with a friend who wanted to make an ex jealous," he invented. "She left me the moment we walked in the door. She's probably already gone home with him."

John leaned forwards, his smile wide and predatory. "So no-one will miss you if I take you away, then?" he said lazily, running a hand up Sherlock's bare arm where he had rolled up his sleeve.

Sherlock smiled. "Not until tomorrow," he replied quietly, leaning forward so that John could hear him over the music. He let John see him breathe in deeply when he was there. The doctor still smelled of asphalt and synthetic leather from the cab, undercut with just a hint of the sweat that Sherlock could see dampening his skin, the smell of _John_ that Sherlock would recognise from twenty feet away with his back turned. John took advantage of their closeness to lick the length of Sherlock's neck.

"Good," he whispered against his skin. "Because I might explode if I don't have you."

Sherlock affected a quiet giggle. His hand worked its way up John's neck, cupping his jaw with a light-hearted fondness. "We can't have that," he whispered back, allowing himself to be lured almost hypnotically closer to his friend's lips. John had thin, sharply-defined lips on which both smiles and disapproval were instantly obvious. Sherlock had loved them even before he had discovered what they felt like moving determinedly against his own.

John kissed him again. Today's kisses were somehow completely different from yesterday's, harder and more forceful, but with the same focussed, relentless command that made Sherlock's knees weak. Yesterday John would have cupped the back of his neck to hold his head steady as he plundered his mouth; today he had one hand firm between his shoulder-blades and the other holding him up against the bar, holding him efficiently in place. "Last chance to back out," John growled into his ear.

"Not a chance at all," Sherlock murmured, teasingly taking John's earlobe between his lips.

" _Fuck_ ," the doctor cursed, the hand on Sherlock's back clenching into a fist. "Let's go."

They repeated last night's ritual of donning their coats by the door and then doubling back to Sherlock's bedroom, John slamming him against the inside wall so hard Sherlock's ears rang and taking his mouth again, one hand sliding up his thigh as though lifting the hem of a dress. Sherlock leaned his head against the wall and panted as John's mouth slid wetly down his jaw and fixed on his still-sensitive neck while his hand travelled still further upwards until it rested over his pectoral muscle the way one might cup a woman's breast.

He wanted John's hands on his bare skin more than almost anything, but he did not dare suggest they remove their shirts, so he contented himself with the weight of his friend's body pushing him against the wall and the delicate feeling of his fingers tracing over his nipple, sending sparks down to his already-hard cock.

_It's not real_ , he reminded himself, forcing out a desperate gasp of _"Charlie_!" to cement the knowledge. John paused to chuckle against his skin, his tongue just dipping into his suprasternal notch. "God," he gasped. "Take me, _please_." The doctor slid off Sherlock's coat, flicking it carelessly onto the floor. Sherlock's lips tightened instinctively at the gesture.

As soon as John stepped away from him Sherlock sank gracefully to his knees, keeping his eyes fixed on his friend's as they hit the floor. " _Please_ , Charlie," he repeated, reaching for his hips. John allowed the touch, stepping forwards and smiling down at him. Sherlock stroked the zipper on his jeans as if pulling it down, smirking as the pressure of his fingers against the impressive bulge there made the doctor hiss.

John grabbed his chin, forcefully redirecting his head so that they looked each other squarely in the eyes. "Wipe that smirk off your face," he said sharply.

Sherlock tried to comply for the space of a few seconds before his face fell back into the smirk. "Why should I?" he asked cheekily.

The doctor slapped him, hard. Sherlock recoiled in shock, his hand automatically flying to his cheek as it reddened. John softened immediately, crouching to look. "I'm sorry!" he cried out, lifting a hand to attempt to pry Sherlock's away from the hot and stinging space on his cheek. "I should have warned you I might do that. I just thought he'd be the type to use physical force, given that he hit her instead of trying to stop her from strangling him –"

"No," Sherlock stopped, in his own voice. "No, I agree with you. I wasn't expecting it, that's all." He smiled at John until the doctor relaxed slightly, letting go of his face and standing back up. "Sorry about the smirk," he murmured.

"Sorry, _sir_ ," John corrected.

Something odd shot down Sherlock's stomach and settled in his balls. He breathed out shakily before obeying. "Sorry, sir," he repeated quietly. John smiled and let go of his chin, gesturing to continue. Sherlock slid his hands around to grope the doctor's arse opportunistically, bending his head to his groin. He could _smell_ John's arousal from down here; his mouth started to water in anticipation and he had to steel himself _not_ to touch.

_I don't know if I can do this._

He sat back on his heels, opening his mouth, taking a deep breath to say something –

"I'd stop you before that went too far," John interrupted silkily. His hands were still awkwardly at his side, clenching and unclenching into fists as though he didn't know what to do with them. "I doubt Trent would care _too_ much about giving you pleasure, but he was never short of lovers, so he must have done _something_ right. Get on the bed," he ordered, tapping Sherlock's shoulder gently.

Sherlock scrambled to obey, climbing onto his bed on all fours, turning to throw John a terribly clichéd provocative look over his shoulder. The doctor snorted. "Don't tease," he commanded, delivering a sharp slap to Sherlock's rear that was dulled by the fabric of his trousers. No-one had ever tried to hit Sherlock in a sexual way before and he had never understood the point of pain-play. He wondered suddenly whether John, with his hitherto unexpected knowledge of BDSM techniques, might be able to explain it to him. "On your back," John continued. "Hands above your head. Keep your eyes on me."

John smiled with half of his mouth as he slid his coat off his shoulders and climbed between Sherlock's legs, bending over to kiss him again, rubbing their groins together languidly. Sherlock whimpered into the kiss; John was just as hard as he was. There was no way it was just the friction of what they had been doing that had made this happen. His lips turned up into a smile against John's.

Testing the waters, he moved his hands to John's back, feeling the warmth of his skin through his thick shirt. John growled, biting his lower lip harshly and slamming his hands back above his head, banging them hard against the bedposts as he did so. "Keep them here," he snarled harshly.

Sherlock pouted even as his eyes started to water from the stinging pain in the back of his hands. "Or what?" he asked pettily.

John grabbed his chin again. "Trust me," he whispered. "Don't find out."

The grip on his chin became painful. Sherlock squirmed uncomfortably underneath him as John gave him one last squeeze and then let go. "Now – I don't think Trent was generous enough to use his mouth on his submissives, but to have any kind of reputation he probably used his fingers." Sherlock quickly grabbed onto the railing that he had been tied to yesterday as John knelt up slightly and slid his hand up the inside of Sherlock's thigh.

He bit his lip to hold back any noises as John's hand found its way between his legs, his fingers gently probing down the seam of his trousers as the meat of his palm pressed firmly against his cock and a strong hand cupped his balls. John reached out with his other hand – the one with which he was holding himself up – and touched Sherlock's lips. "Don't," he said, his voice low. "Don't keep those noises from me." Sherlock could feel his cock throbbing against John's hand, and he knew John could feel it too. " _God_ ," John cursed, dipping his head into Sherlock's neck and pressing harder into his cock.

Sherlock moaned. He felt John's mouth curl into a smile against the tender skin of his neck; the doctor shifted his hand slightly, his fingers feeling delicately between Sherlock's legs until they whispered over his hole and Sherlock had to make another undignified noise. He could _feel_ John's fingers, right _there_ , and even though he knew there was no way they would ever go _in_ through all the layers of trousers and pants the _idea_ of it was so intoxicating that he moaned again, rescuing himself just before a _j_ sound started to form.

John lifted his head from Sherlock's neck and smiled. "I would think you'd be ready by now, wouldn't you?"

" _God_ , yes," Sherlock replied without thinking. "Charlie, please," he added hurriedly, squirming as John rubbed his hand slowly up and down Sherlock's penis and smirked.

"Don't move your hands," John reminded him quietly, letting go of his cock in order to kneel between his legs, his hands firm on Sherlock's hips. "Are you ready?"

Sherlock let out a shuddering breath, his hands white-knuckled on the bed-rail. "Of _course_ ," he huffed out desperately. "Please, just do – _ah!_ "

John's hands tightened without warning and he yanked Sherlock down the bed, his entire body sliding across the covers until their groins met, hard and slightly painful, but Sherlock could feel John's erection hot and hard and throbbing in the cleft of his arse, and John circled his hips hard against him and groaned. He had lost his grip on the headboard when John pulled him flush against his cock, so he grabbed two handfuls of the pillow instead, letting out a shout. John set up a fast, relentless pace almost immediately, not _withdrawing_ but rubbing himself up and down the seam of Sherlock's trousers, so that when he thrust the friction against Sherlock's balls and the base of his cock increased until it was almost unbearable, until his sobs with each thrust almost completely stopped being fake.

" _Charlie,"_ he called out, throwing his head back against the bed, "harder, please, _Charlie!_ "

John obliged, leaning forwards over Sherlock in order to get a greater purchase against the foot of the bed with his feet and thrust himself harder against Sherlock's groin, making him shout out again, and he was suddenly grateful that Mrs Hudson was out or there would be some interesting questions later that he wouldn't even be able to answer the way that he wanted to. John was making noises too, grunts of effort as Sherlock met his thrusts, trying to guide them lower and away from his cock, because if he came there was no way he would be able to hide it from John and pass it off as good acting.

Then John stopped. "Sherlock," he growled, his voice rough. A strangled sort of noise bubbled out of Sherlock's throat before he realised that John's thrust were slowing and stopping. He sat up. "Sherlock, I've got to stop."

"What?" Sherlock asked, moving his hands in order to prop himself up on his elbows.

The doctor looked decidedly uncomfortable. "I have to… I'm sorry, but if I keep going then I'll…" he gestured to his groin.

Sherlock lifted his eyebrows, his eyes following John's. "Go on, then," he said quietly. "I don't mind. I need to see her strangling him as well, I'll need you here."

John gaped at him. "You… you'd rather I rut against you until I come than leave the room for a minute and disrupt your role-play?"

He shrugged. "Lives may be at stake, John," he bluffed. It was possible John hadn't realised it yet, but it was so _incredibly_ unlikely that this role-play was going to cause the breakthrough that solved the case.

There was a long pause. John looked as though he was fighting with himself, as though a part of him desperately wanted this but there was a part of him that knew it wasn't a good idea. A part of Sherlock knew that, too, but he wanted to see John come more than he cared about the sense of doing so.

"All right," John said finally, breathing out slowly and putting his hands back on Sherlock's hips. He tried not to look to ecstatic about the decision, falling back into his lying-down position and replacing his hands above his head.

For a moment, neither of them spoke, and the atmosphere quickly became thick with tension and the sound of John's still-laboured breathing. Sherlock realised quickly that the tangible awkwardness of the moment would most likely _remove_ John's apparently overwhelming need to come, so he hooked his legs around the doctor's upper thighs and pulled them flush together. " _Charlie_ ," he sighed, trying to remove the pressure of the moment _. It's not real,_ he reminded the both of them silently.

John sighed and gently began to roll his hips again, but the angle was different this time; his shift in position had meant that he was leaning over Sherlock, and his groin was rubbing almost directly against Sherlock's. A particularly sharp thrust made him gasp helplessly; could he pass off coming when John did as the simple physicality of the act, even when John apparently thought of him as cold and uninterested? He tried to shift his hips to reduce the pressure a little, sure he could not keep the sound of John's name out of the shout he would make when he came.

He started up his slightly over-the-top series of quiet groans and pleas of _harder_ or _faster_ once more, clutching handfuls of pillow so tightly he worried about ripping it. John's harsh exhales sped up incrementally, developing into tiny noises that were almost moans but not quite, and Sherlock had never been able to imagine John making noises during sex without them being hugely unrealistic but this _worked_ somehow. He gave a drawn-out moan, rolling his own hips in time with the thrusts against them so that they neatly missed the most sensitive parts of his groin, closing his eyes to give John the privacy he suspected the doctor would need to let go.

His friend bent right over him so that his lips brushed Sherlock's neck, damp and hot, parted slightly to let hot breath invade Sherlock's skin. This had the slight disadvantage for Sherlock of leaving their bodies pressed entirely together from groin to chest, and when John thrust frantic and erratic against him he could feel it along the whole length of his cock.

It wasn't a worry for long before John gasped, shuddered, and gave two desperate, short groans. Sherlock could feel his groin throbbing and pulsing against his own, and the feeling and the _knowledge_ of it shot him so close to his own edge that he could feel it sneaking up on him, hanging just beyond his reach. A few more moments of desperate rutting and he would be there.

For the tiniest of split seconds, he considered it, considered parting his lips and saying _please, John, I need to come_ , considered succumbing to it with John's weight pressing him into the bed and John's smell in his nose. But John had stopped moving now, still barely holding himself up so that he didn't collapse on top of Sherlock, and after the moment it took Sherlock to decide John had caught his breath already and was lifting himself back onto his elbows and knees.

The whole point of the exercise had been to simulate the events leading up to Trent's murder, so Sherlock pushed his arousal to the back of his mind and fastened his hands around John's neck.

John tried to gasp in surprise, obviously having forgotten that this was coming, but Sherlock tightened his fingers incrementally and he stopped. He wasn't holding John's neck tightly enough to actually cut off his air supply, but it was enough that it couldn't be comfortable, and John struggled instinctively, shifting his weight onto his legs in order to lift his hands to clutch at Sherlock's fingers.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to tell John to leave his hands alone, but John was already eyeing him critically and the next thing he knew John was slapping him again. Really it was quite remarkable that he could get that much power behind a slap from that angle, Sherlock couldn't help but think, before both of John's fists were pummeling his face and neck lightly. They were just the shadows of actual hits, not hard enough to leave bruises but still hard enough to hurt, hard enough to make holding on challenging. Impressive that she _had_ managed to keep holding on and supporting a fair amount of his weight; Sherlock would be tempted to consider alternate explanations if he were not routinely surprised by the things people were capable of in near-death situations. John had laughed and said something about someone called Doctor No when he had last mentioned it.

After a few moments, John gave up on trying to hit his face and started on his arms instead. Sherlock frowned thoughtfully at the gesture. Surely Trent would have been strong enough to do some serious damage to her arms, but wouldn't she have dropped him if her arms had given way? Unless he was already too weak from lack of oxygen by the time he thought of it.

"I would probably have asphyxiated by now," John rasped finally, dropping his hands.

Sherlock chuckled and gently eased his hands away from the doctor's neck, allowing John to gradually take his weight back onto his legs. "In all likelihood, yes," he agreed. He sighed as John climbed out from between his legs and sat down on the bed, awkwardly tugging at the damp fabric around his groin. "It's a ridiculous position to attempt to strangle someone from," he commented, not trying to sit up himself, "but I imagine her disgust at his different approach to domination would have made her want to get her hands around his throat as soon as possible."

John hummed agreement. "I've never really understood the appeal of that approach to domination myself. Not that I'm claiming to be an expert, but I had a girlfriend who liked it once and it really didn't work between us."

"I see," Sherlock said uncomfortably. Now that the analytic mindset that had been necessary while he was strangling John had faded his erection had returned to the fore; though the strangulation had calmed it down somewhat, he could still tell that it wouldn't be going anywhere without help. He shifted awkwardly, one hand drifting automatically towards the waistline of his trousers.

Naturally, John's eyes followed it. "Did you… er… need a hand with that?"

Sherlock froze. John also seemed to realise all of a sudden what he had said and flushed scarlet. "It will be fine, thank you, John," he replied quietly. This time there wasn't even a ridiculously flimsy excuse for John to stay and 'give him a hand', and he just knew he wasn't ready to have the conversation that would lead to that situation _not_ being horribly awkward.

John nodded sharply. Sherlock was gratified to notice that he looked a little disappointed.

"Right," the doctor said after another slightly awkward moment. "Well, I'll go and… change my pants, I suppose," he said, leaving the room in a great flurry.

Knowing that John was leaving mainly for the purpose of giving him privacy, Sherlock yanked the zipper on his trousers down the moment the door shut behind him, pulling himself out of his pants and frantically stroking himself with a shuddering gasp. John had offered – John had _wanted_ to make him come. Now the only thing that remained was to work out exactly how to let the doctor know that Sherlock wanted that too, desperately, _desperately_ , and not just because they needed release at that particular moment, not under the guise of helping out a friend.

John had come pressed right up against him. Sherlock had _felt_ it, felt his friend's body shuddering and his chest heaving, heard the tiny abortive moans he had made, almost come himself at the knowledge that he had done that, _he_ had made John feel like that –

Sherlock came, gasping out John's name as he spurted into a tissue held at the ready, his entire body spasming in helpless pleasure. He couldn't remember the last time he'd come that hard; it seemed to last for an unnaturally long time, before he eventually shook his way into a panting, trembling mess on his bed, residual images of John's brief post-coital smile flittering through his mind, imagining what it would be like to be able to roll over and have John's naked and sweaty body to roll into and curl up against, to drift in and out of a light doze until one of them had to do something.

He sighed and crumpled the tissue into the overflowing wastepaper bin by the bed, listening to the groaning of the pipes as the shower started up overhead, and pulled a pillow close to curl up against instead.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Vince, who demanded I name a character in a story after him, and who was once upon a time a regular feature in my own submissive fantasies. Happy now? For the rest of you, I've planned out the rest of this story and it will be a grand total of 9 chapters long, including a porny epilogue. Also, The Edge is a real Soho bar but I've never been there so my representation of it is fictional, as is the Ball and Chain.

Sherlock realised very quickly that he had underestimated how difficult it would be to tell John what he wanted.

It had seemed like the work of a moment; compose a short speech and then deliver it in tremendously awkward style over a late lunch that he considered making himself, but that John turned out to have already begun by the time he emerged from his bedroom.

But John had acted as though the entire role-play had never happened, plonking a sandwich in front of Sherlock and commanding him to eat it as he had every day or so for months. Sherlock did so, watching John carefully for any flicker of interest in the fact that he had obviously finished himself off as soon as the doctor had left the room. He didn't find one until after they had both finished their lunch, chatting idly about nothing in particular and shifting simultaneously into the kitchen to stack their plates by the sink. John turned around from the kitchen bench and apparently found Sherlock closer than he had expected; he stared, transfixed, at Sherlock's chest for a moment, but just when Sherlock was reaching out to tip up his chin and deliver his speech he started guiltily and moved off as though he had been shocked.

By the time Lestrade called again late the next morning Sherlock was thoroughly frustrated with the whole affair. He had not even been able to think about alternate ways to find their killer because John had been _around_ all the time, casually bumbling about the flat tidying things or sitting in his armchair with a book or the laptop. Sherlock would begin thinking that he evidently couldn't count on his sources in the London swing scene to know someone fitting the description (and yet she _must_ be finding her victims from _somewhere_ )and then discover that he had actually spent the last ten minutes staring idly at the doctor and wondering whether John actually wanted a _relationship_ with him or just wanted his body in much the same way Sherlock had wanted John's before he began to know what it would be like to have it.

"Are you staring at me on purpose?" John had asked at one point.

Sherlock had started, asked John to repeat the question, and then replied nonchalantly, "I didn't realise I had been, I'm sorry." He'd tried to stop but it hadn't worked, and John had eventually given it up as simply being something interesting for Sherlock to look at while he thought.

It was around eleven the next morning that Lestrade called again to inform them there had been another murder. Sherlock looked at the clock in surprise. "Interesting," he replied simply. "Text me the address and we'll leave straight away."

John lifted an eyebrow at him as he stood, already putting his book aside in preparation for getting up and leaving. "Already?" he asked eagerly.

Sherlock nodded briskly. "She's accelerating. And I imagine Trent's behaviour would have reinforced her cause somewhat." His mobile chimed with the address. "Come on, John," he said brightly. The doctor scrambled out of his chair with a brilliant smile, tossing Sherlock's coat and scarf to him as they passed the door. Sherlock folded the crime-scene and ID photographs from the first two murders into an inside pocket of his coat.

There was always a certain thrill in being called to a murder scene, but this went _beyond_ that somehow. It was difficult to judge the reaction in John because of the sparks flooding his own veins, but there was a certain undercurrent of anticipation between them as they kissed Mrs Hudson goodbye and bundled into a cab. Another murder would mean another role-play.

Lestrade met them at the door of the spacious central London flat building. "This one's different again," he said glumly, apparently not sharing their enthusiasm for the case.

"Excellent," Sherlock said, patting the worn DI on the shoulder in an attempt to rub off some of his good humour. "Everything she does differently tells us something about her." Lestrade smiled weakly, glancing at John and evidently hoping for some sort of conspiratorial look of the sort the two often shared behind Sherlock's back. He smiled triumphantly when the doctor didn't offer him one.

"His name was Vincent Stephens," Lestrade said wearily when they reached the penthouse apartment. "Inherited the family business last year, seemed to have been doing pretty well running it. His cleaner found him right before I called you, we reckon he'd been dead for about an hour then but we'll get a better estimate when we send the body to the coroner. Otherwise… have at it."

Stephens' body had been neatly arranged on the bed, fully dressed. Even his flies had been refastened, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes pressed closed. Sherlock frowned. "Well," John said from behind him. "I see what you mean about different."

This was the presentation of a completely different killer than the one who had so crudely disposed of Trent. If it weren't for the fact that Stephens fit the pattern of the other two victims and the scarf that had quite clearly been used to tie someone's hands to the headboard, Sherlock would almost have assumed they _were_ a different killer's handiwork. "What do you think, John?" he asked, looking back at the doctor. He had plenty of ideas himself, of course, but it was always helpful to get John's opinion first, and he was slightly hopeful for a repeat of the last time he had asked it, when John had completely surprised all of them with his analysis.

This time, though, John simply gestured towards the body. "You're the expert," he said in a mock-deferential tone. Sherlock smiled gracefully.

"She redressed him and arranged the body in a respectful position," he stated, watching John like he was daring him to make a remark about _stating the obvious_. He didn't, so Sherlock continued. "They're clear signs of remorse. For some reason, she cared about this one more than the others." He performed his cursory calculating sweep of the room. "Judging by the photographs, he'd come out of a long-term relationship about…" he moved to the dresser for a closer look, "a month ago. He probably missed looking after someone the way he'd looked after his girlfriend. He was nice to her."

Lestrade folded his arms. "I thought this was all about dominance and submission for her?"

Sherlock gave him a scathing look. "Oh, he was definitely dominant," he appraised, putting the photograph down. "Perhaps our _femme fatale_ is only just realising that not all dominants are cruel." He sighed at the Inspector's blank look. "There are different dynamics to this sort of relationship, Lestrade. Being the dominant partner implies a certain level of control, it's true, and many people do play up that element and use it to incorporate pain and humiliation and a degree of sexual servitude. But having power over someone also leaves you with a responsibility to take care of them. To look after them. My guess would be that that was the element Stephens showed our killer, and she wasn't expecting it."

"You don't think she'd know about that kind of dominance?" Lestrade interrupted sceptically.

"I think if you put yourself out there as a submissive, you're going to invite a lot of jerks and losers to subject you to sexual abuse under the name of BDSM," Sherlock retorted. "It's very possible that she'd just never been with anyone who took care of her the way they should have. _Or_ she could be simply acting on principle - maybe one rich and arrogant dominant treated her badly and she's getting back at the stereotype without having much knowledge of BDSM herself."

The DI mulled this over for a moment before sighing. "All right," he said, as though the information really didn't make much difference. "Didn't you say you knew people who could find her?"

Sherlock shrugged irritatedly. "I had two. One of them isn't answering my phonecalls and the other hasn't seen anyone like her but is keeping an eye out. John and I will pay a visit to the first one on our way home, just in case there's a reason he's not answering."

He bent to examine the ligature marks on Stephens' neck; it looked as though strangling him had taken longer than the others. He lifted an eyebrow at John. "How long would you say it took him to die?" he asked.

The doctor bent close. "Ages," he pronounced scientifically after a moment. "It wouldn't have been pleasant for either of them."

Sherlock hummed. "I suppose we can hope that the trauma from this murder will stop her for a while," he mused.

John snorted suddenly. Sherlock lifted a curious eyebrow at him. "Sorry," he said brightly, not sounding sorry at all. "Sometimes it hits me all of a sudden that this is my life now. You know, if someone had told me at _any_ point of my life up to about sixteen months ago that one day I'd be a doctor _and_ solve high-profile crimes with my mad best friend I never would have believed them. I probably would have thought they were just humouring my overdeveloped sense of adventure."

" _You_ solve crimes?" Sherlock teased. John made a face that was clearly one step short of sticking out his tongue.

He was touched, though, by the idea that meeting him appealed to the childish sense of adventure within John, the implication in his outburst that his life with Sherlock was a sort of dream he had never imagined would come true. And the title of 'best friend' kindled something warm and homely in his stomach; Sherlock had never been anyone's best friend before. John's fingers brushed his as the doctor stepped back from the body and Sherlock clamped them briefly between his own, squeezing in a subtle gesture of affection.

Lestrade seemed reluctant to interrupt the warm silence between them, so Sherlock bent forwards to examine the victim's fingers, clearing his throat briskly. "His fingernails were too short to scratch her too much, I would say. It does look as though he tried, though. If he'd cared for her I imagine it would have come as quite a shock when she all of a sudden turned on him." He remembered John's shock the previous night, the little bubble that orgasm created and how long it had taken him to react once Sherlock shattered it. And that was after years of army training. By the time Stephens mustered the brainpower to try and resist, the lack of oxygen would already have weakened his muscles. "Really, it's quite a clever strategy on her part, being someone who would never be able to overpower these men in ordinary circumstances."

"Could we maybe hold the meeting of the Serial Killer Appreciation Society outside of police time?" Lestrade interjected wearily.

Sherlock shrugged. "That does tend to drastically reduce attendance," he quipped.

"Oh, I don't know," the DI said darkly with a meaningful look at Donovan. "Most of the new recruits would probably still turn up. It's incredible how many people join the police after an adolescence spent watching _CSI_ or _Criminal Minds_ , hoping to bag themselves their own personal Hannibal Lector."

"Yes," Sherlock interjected drily. "Could we maybe run the Senior Police Commiseration Session outside of consultant hours?"

Lestrade actually stuck his tongue out at Sherlock, who chuckled at him. "Maybe we could return to the case in question," he suggested. "Perhaps you should bring in a few of your new recruits with all of their telly-watching experience. Shock them out of wanting the serial cases."

"I would, if I weren't afraid _you_ would shock them out of the Force entirely," the officer retorted. "Is there anything else, or can I get back to my interviews?"

Sherlock looked around the room again and pocketed the photograph on the bedside table of Stephens and his ex. "No," he said briskly, ignoring Donovan's indignant shout at his appropriation of evidence. "Text me if the interviews find anything, and I'll let you know if we get anything from our inquiries this afternoon. If he's actually avoiding us for a reason I'll need you."

* * *

"If it helps, I never expected this life either," Sherlock said softly when they were safely ensconced in the back of a cab.

John frowned up at him. "Which life?"

Sherlock heroically refrained from making a sarcastic remark about the improbability of reincarnation. "The one I have with you," he clarified. "Actually having my own environment, my own community - the feeling of coming home to Baker Street and Mrs Hudson and to _you_. I never expected to have that. I thought I'd spend my whole life by myself in some mouldy back-alley flat on the outskirts of London."

For a moment, the doctor just watched him. Then he smiled warmly. "I'm very glad you're not," he replied. Sherlock grinned at him, and he eventually turned his face back towards the window. "So where are we going?" he asked.

"The Ball and Chain - an extremely exclusive bar in Soho," Sherlock told him matter-of-factly. John gave him a familiar _why do I get myself into these things_ expression, which Sherlock didn't believe a word of after his earlier confession.

John coughed carefully. "An exclusive _BDSM_ bar in Soho?" he ventured, sounding almost afraid of the answer.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "It's one o'clock in the afternoon, it's not open. It's not as if I'm dragging you into a den full of whips and chains and asking you to pretend to be in a relationship with me. But the proprietor ought to be there at this time of day, so we can just make sure he _missed_ my call instead of _avoiding_ it. That's really the last thing we can do as far as that avenue of inquiry goes."

John's eyes narrowed slightly, as though he was critical of this plan, but he didn't say anything. Sherlock turned away from him and stared out of the window at the grey clouds building around them. _He_ was critical of the plan too, mainly because it wasn't really a plan at all. Somewhere between now and that first murder he had become completely sidetracked by John, and really they hadn't made any progress at all on the actual _case_ since the first role-play. It was embarrassing that his mind could be so derailed with so little to show for it - worse, though, was the part of him that was doing it on purpose, because the longer it took them to solve this case, the longer he had an excuse to be close to John, to be _intimate_ with John, without having to face the reasons he wanted it head on.

There was a terrible part of him - the part that had survived on its own for the majority of his life - that thought that if a few cruel and abusive men had to die so that he and John could work something out, then so be it. The rest of him hated that part, but it was there nonetheless.

What would they do if their meeting with the proprietor of the BDSM bar proved fruitless? It was really the only thing Sherlock had thought to do on this case. Sitting back and waiting helplessly for precautionary measures and look-outs to come through was something that the police did, not Sherlock Holmes.

He sighed, his head resting on the cold window of the cab. He really ought to focus on other ways the killer might be finding her victims, but his mind wouldn't stay on that track, instead trailing back to the mainly unnecessary role-play that would happen when they got back to the flat. Stephens had been a caring dominant, intimate, familiar; once they got started John would undoubtedly begin treating him as though he was his most prized possession, gentling him and praising him like he was _precious._ If it had been difficult to separate role-play and reality before, it would be impossible this time.

Perhaps it would be for the best if Sherlock forgot himself and called John's name, or some similar slip. If the truth came out helplessly, and if John didn't like it Sherlock could pretend he never intended to tell him, pretend it was only something that lived in the back of his mind and was easily squashed.

The cabbie had given them a slightly dirty look when Sherlock had asked to be taken to Soho Square, and he gave them another as he pulled up the cab and announced their arrival. Sherlock counted out the exact amount of cash he could read off the meter, earning himself a raised eyebrow from John; usually he just threw the nearest whole note at the driver before taking off. Some people really didn't deserve tips.

"Bill took me there once," John said with a wry grin as they walked through the Square, gesturing to one of the few bars that was open, fielding a gentle flow of lunch-goers. Sherlock frowned at the sign above the door. The Edge was a fairly well-known gay bar. He'd been there himself a few times, in pursuit of contacts or suspects. "Totally oblivious. I mean, it's not as if this area is discreet in its target audience - but no, someone recommended it to him without telling him it was a gay bar and then he was surprised when men kept hitting on the two of us."

Sherlock kept his face carefully clear of the rush of _something_ that hit him at the thought of other men 'hitting on' John. "You agreed to go, even though you knew it was a gay bar?" he asked drily, leading his friend gently away from the partitions around the empty outdoor area.

John snorted. "At first I thought he was trying to come out to me, you know. By the time I realised he had no idea it was already hilarious and I wanted to follow it through. Plus, the food was pretty good. It's not like I have anything _against_ gay bars."

They ducked down a side-alley, Sherlock still imagining the jovial, irritatingly-clueless redhead Murray fighting off the sleazier of the men who frequented The Edge. Of all John's army friends he had met, Bill Murray was the one he had liked the most; he was friendly and unerringly polite, fairly intelligent if not particularly perceptive. "So how do you know this place exists, then?" John asked as Sherlock pointed out the russet door halfway down the alley, evidently noticing the lack of signage. "Did you come here on a case once?"

Sherlock smirked. "Maybe I'm just a regular," he teased. "Maybe this is where I spend my downtime."

John shook his head as though to dislodge the image from it. Sherlock chuckled at him and knocked on the door.

"We're closed," came a muffled voice from behind it. Sherlock frowned and knocked again, not wanting to let them know who it was before they opened the door so that he could tell if they didn't want to talk to him. The voice grew louder. "I said we're - Sherlock!"

He smiled brightly at the young man who had opened the door. "Tom," he replied cheerfully. The tawny-haired man clapped him on the shoulder, looking genuinely pleased to see him. _There goes that possibility_ , Sherlock thought glumly. He hadn't really thought that Tom would attempt to hide things from him; they had got on fairly well the last case that Sherlock had required his cooperation for, and Sherlock had developed a genuine affection for him. "Can we come in?" he asked, remembering belatedly to introduce John. "This is my flatmate, Doctor John Watson."

John shook the barman's hand; Sherlock noticed that John was standing straighter than usual, puffing out his chest slightly with a sort of firmness in his eyes that he recognised. _Asserting his dominance,_ Sherlock realised with a slight thrill. John was attempting to convey through his body language that Sherlock was spoken for, so subtly that it was probably subconscious. He smiled brightly as Tom stepped aside to let them into the bar.

"I left you a fairly urgent message yesterday morning on the house phone and didn't receive a reply," Sherlock explained as Tom pulled out barstools for them. "I need an answer to my question as quickly as possible, so I thought we'd pop by in person."

Tom frowned slightly, ducking behind the bar. "There wasn't anything from you when I checked the house phone last night. Whiskey? On the house." Sherlock appraised the bottle he was holding out and nodded gratefully; John, still looking like he was daring Tom to challenge him, declined. "Eliza took the messages during the day, I think, but she said there was nothing important."

Sherlock lifted an eyebrow; Eliza was Tom's partner, and while Sherlock had heard a lot about her during the last case that had brought him to the Ball and Chain he'd never actually met her. He'd gathered from what Tom had said that when they incorporated elements of BDSM into their relationship she usually took the submissive role. Could she have concealed the message from Tom for her own reasons?

" _Eliza!_ " Tom called out, sliding two fingers of whiskey across the bar in front of Sherlock and pouring out a similar glass for himself. With a clatter, a young woman tumbled down the stairs to the living quarters on top of the bar and straightened expectantly at the door with a wince at her own clumsiness. Sherlock relaxed slightly at her unruly shock of auburn hair. It had been dyed, but not recently; hints of darker brown were creeping out from her temples. "Did _anyone_ call yesterday? I know you said nothing I should worry about, but was there anything at all?"

Eliza ran a hand through her messy curls, leaning against the doorframe. "We had a couple of membership requests, which I just processed myself. The internet provider finally called back." She frowned. "I know there was something else - oh, yeah, some posh wanker called about us cooperating with a police investigation. I had no idea what he was talking about, but the message should still be on the machine."

Sherlock smiled tightly at Tom's apologetic expression. "Well, that clears that up," he said cheerfully.

Eliza's eyes flickered from her partner to Sherlock and back again a few times. "Oh, fuck, it's you, isn't it," she said, looking aghast. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean -"

He waved the apologies away. "So you haven't seen anyone that matched my descriptions, then?"

She shook her head, her cheeks still resolutely stained scarlet. "Sorry. Petite and blonde covers a lot of people here, but we know almost everyone who comes in here. If someone turned up with bruises all over their face we'd know about it, and we'd make an effort to find out who did it to her and make sure it didn't happen again."

Tom was nodding as she talked, watching her with an odd mixture of affection and residual disapproval. "We were approached by the police when we first opened about the potential for abuse involved in encouraging BDSM, but we've always had very thorough abuse procedures; if we have reason to think someone's being abused we investigate, intervene if we can, hand it over to the police if necessary. Actual visible bruises would be reported to the police straightaway. Why are you looking for someone that bruised? Surely if they've gone into hiding because of their abuse they'd be better off staying there?"

Sherlock smiled to show his approval of their attitudes, then said, "Actually, we think this specific person's bruises were gained somewhere in the course of three murders in the last week. It's very important that this person is found - I'd appreciate it if you could keep an eye out for us."

"In the course of… do you mean that she was, like, a witness to the murders, or are you actually suggesting that she might _be_ the murderer?"

"The latter," Sherlock said briskly. Eliza looked rather stunned, as though she didn't believe women could be murderers. "It's imperative that we find her as soon as possible. Do you still have my phone number?" he asked Tom, who nodded, gesturing towards a business-card booklet visible under the bar.

He pulled out the photographs of the first two murders and the one he had stolen from Stephens' bedside table. "Stewart Montgomery was murdered on Monday night," he said, laying the photo of his driver's license and that of his dead body stretched out on his bed side-by-side on the bar. "Charles Trent on Wednesday night," he repeated the process with Trent's photographs, "and Vincent Stephens this morning. Did you know any of these men through the Ball and Chain?"

Tom was staring at Montgomery's crime-scene photo; Eliza skipped over to them and pointed to his ID photo instantly. "Oh, God, Stewart came in from time to time. _Murdered._ Christ."

Sherlock removed the crime-scene photographs. "Had he been in recently?" he asked, watching Eliza closely.

She shook her head, her curls flying. "I hadn't seen him in about a month. He wasn't a regular, really, only came in every few months. I didn't work last week, though, did you see him, Tom?"

The barman shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, no. I'm not quite as good with names and faces as Eliza - I generally only remember the regulars who we see almost every week." Eliza flushed with pleasure at the compliment. Sherlock watched their exchange for a moment; the look of quiet pride Tom gave her and her pleased, docile drop of the head. He smiled softly. "I'll ask around for you - I'm in contact with the man who runs the London area of the more BDSM-based dating site, I can give him the names and your number and get him to run them through his records, see if they had profiles and how they used them in the last month or so."

"I'd appreciate that," Sherlock replied. Dating sites were going to be his next line of inquiry; if Tom knew the people who ran it he was likely to get more information than using the murder investigation line himself. He'd learned very early on in his career that people who catered to 'deviant' tastes didn't like talking to the police. "Keep those photos. Thank you, Tom, you've both been very helpful."

He drained the whiskey and thanked the pair again; John fidgeted uncomfortably when Sherlock's parting handshake with Tom lasted slightly longer than necessary.

"You were unusually friendly in there," John remarked as they stepped back out into the street. The clouds had thickened threateningly overhead while they had been in the bar, and Sherlock hoped they could hail a taxi before it started to rain.

"I can be friendly," he retorted, smiling nonetheless at the doctor's disgruntled expression.

John scowled. "Yeah, when it suits you. But that was _genuinely_ friendly, not the scary normal-person thing you do when you're trying to manipulate people."

"I can be genuinely friendly," Sherlock maintained.

The doctor seemed to be fighting himself, as though there was something he wanted very much _not_ to say but he knew he wouldn't be able to resist. "I've never seen you be _genuinely_ friendly to anyone except Lestrade, Mrs Hudson and me."

Sherlock laughed. John's scowl intensified. "Jealousy is a very ugly emotion," he commented. "John, you're my best friend. That doesn't change just because there are other people in the world whom I happen to like."

Their eyes met for a moment and John smiled, apparently appeased, but Sherlock still thought he caught the words _posh wanker_ coming in a mutter from the doctor's lips as they walked back towards the square.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who might be stuck in the storm over in England, I wish you the best of luck and hope you're all right.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, but my exams are now finished and from hereon in I have no excuse...

By the time they made it back to the flat the heavens had opened; Sherlock stripped off his coat and held it over their heads as they ran from the taxi to the flat's front door, John huddled warm and close to his side so as to remain under the coat. The doctor dropped his keys twice in the too-hasty fumble to get them in the lock before they got too wet, and by the time they actually got into the hallway of 221 John was doing that little giggle that he did sometimes when they had just done something exceptionally stupid or dangerous. Sherlock hadn't realised John could giggle like that in everyday situations.

For one wild moment he considered pouncing, leaping on John, pressing him against the wall and kissing him while desperately hoping John would kiss him back instead of pushing him furiously away. Then the toilet flushed in 221A and he sighed, running a hand through the droplets of water settling into his hair. "A fire is in order, I think," he commented, shaking out the Belstaff forlornly.

John hummed enthusiastic agreement as they started up the stairs. "You get the fire, I'll get the tea," he negotiated.

Sherlock had tried to insist that John take responsibility of the fireplace once upon a time, assuming that with his army experience the task would be simple for him. The smoke alarms were still going off hours later and Sherlock had taken over from then on. Now he simply shot the doctor a wry smile as he leapt up the stairs, stripping off his jacket before the damp bled through to his shirt.

It was already late; Sherlock wondered whether it was worth initiating any kind of role-play before John would want to go to bed. He had been rostered onto the early shift at the surgery again tomorrow. Sherlock supposed it would be easier for him to think without John around.

John sat down on the sofa next to him once the fire had leapt into crackling action, slipping a mug of tea in front of him and bending his back to look Sherlock in the eye concernedly. "Are you all right?" he asked.

Sherlock looked up in surprise at the question; he hadn't thought that he looked out of sorts. When he caught John's eyes, though, they were wide with concern. He smiled bewilderedly. "Of course, John," he assured him.

The doctor's face froze uncomfortably. "Oh - did you want to go over the murder with me? I just assumed you'd want to do that as soon as we got home."

"Oh!" Sherlock corrected himself, realising that John had been attempting to initiate the expected role-play. Something in his stomach that he hadn't even realised was clenching relaxed. "No, of course. Thank you, John." He reached out a hand timidly for the tea his friend was still holding out to him. "And I'm… fine." He schooled his voice into a quieter, softer tone and hunched over slightly, like someone attempting to drown their sorrows in a bar, shooting an entirely false smile at the doctor.

John shifted closer to him on the sofa until their knees were pressing together, looking hesitant. "You've done an admirable job of hiding it, but… I don't think any amount of makeup could cover those bruises."

Sherlock jumped as though he had forgotten the killer would have bruises. "Oh, fuck," he muttered softly, lifting a hand to his cheekbones.

"I'm not going to lecture you, or try and get you to report whoever did that to you. I'll completely ignore it if you want me to. I guess I just wanted to check you're okay." John's fingers tapped against his mug uncomfortably.

Sherlock smiled weakly. "I'm fine, thank you," he replied. "And I won't be seeing him again."

John grinned suddenly. "That's wonderful news," he said brightly. "To freedom," he suggested, lifting his mug in a toast.

"Freedom," Sherlock agreed, clinking his own mug gently against John's. His timid smile grew as he watched John take a generous gulp of his tea. "Thank you for the drink," he said after a moment. "And the concern. It's good to know there are still decent men out there."

The resulting chuckle was rich and dark, luxurious on Sherlock's ears like red velvet cake. "You're welcome," he replied idly. "You looked like you needed it."

There was a pause for a moment, in which John sipped his tea again and shifted his knee subtly against Sherlock's. "I'm Vince," he introduced.

"Nice to meet you," Sherlock answered instead of providing his own name. John smiled thinly. "So, um… what do you do? Other than drink on weeknights, that is."

John chuckled again. "I'm the CEO of a property management company - don't look so impressed, I inherited it from my father. Basically I sign papers all day."

Sherlock flapped a hand at his false modesty. "Hey, it beats what I do. I'm an accounts receivable officer for the Ministry of Health," he invented. John smiled wryly, his nose buried in his teacup. Sherlock slapped him lightly on the arm. "It pays my bills," he said sternly. "We can't all inherit property management companies."

"No," John laughed. "No, we can't."

They settled down into a comfortable silence, watching the flames jump cheerfully in the fireplace. "They probably talked for quite a while," Sherlock said finally, leaning back on the sofa and tucking his feet up underneath him. "For Stephens to be comfortable enough with her to treat her the way he would have treated his long-term girlfriend, they would have formed an emotional connection. She probably played along thinking that as soon as he got her on her own he'd turn nasty."

John smiled idly. "Probably. Of course, she would be genuinely enjoying herself, because he would be devastatingly funny."

Sherlock affected a sarcastic laugh. "Oh, naturally. Still stupid enough to get himself murdered, though."

John laughed in turn. "I'm not sure that was his fault," he argued genially, shifting slightly closer to Sherlock on the sofa, one arm stretching subtly across its back towards him.

"Well, he must have done _something_ to attract her attention," Sherlock retorted.

The creeping hand reached Sherlock's shoulder and dipped its fingers down to stroke it through his shirt, John's face not betraying the movement in the slightest. "Didn't we agree she might only be picking people for their dominant roles in the bedroom?" Sherlock lifted an eyebrow coyly. "Though you saw him. I think we both know how he _attracted_ her attention."

Sherlock snorted, and John laughed with him; in the companionable pause that followed Sherlock finished his tea and put the empty cup back on the coffee table. John was staring at him with this odd, intense look on his face.

Sherlock's heart beat once before they lunged for each other, their mouths clashing messily, the taste of tea smearing all around Sherlock's mouth before they managed to fit their lips together properly. Sherlock swung a leg over both of John's in order to fit their bodies closer together as the doctor's nimble hands slid firmly into his hair, clutching his head closer to his own to slip his tongue into Sherlock's mouth. He moaned softly. John's mouth cradled him, held him, his hands clutching tight around Sherlock's back.

It wasn't like any of the other kisses they had shared; warm and enveloping, _gently_ overwhelming rather than pushing until Sherlock drowned in it. He wasn't sure he liked it: it was too familiar, too _knowing._ It made Sherlock feel queasy; he wasn't even sure that it was because of the intimacy that hadn't yet been earned, wasn't sure whether he would like it even if it were him and John in real life, just the two of them with no pretences. John's tongue swept through his mouth like rain in summer, cleansing him, lighting up his erogenous zones until every inch of his body tingled.

Slowly, the pressure in Sherlock's chest built until he recognised it as lack of oxygen rather than the vertigo he'd come to associate with kissing John, and he had to push at the shorter man's shoulders to gasp for air. A quick glance at John's face, though, showed it flushed and desperate, his thin lips glistening with their combined saliva; Sherlock moaned frantically and dove back in, laving the saliva from John's lips and plunging his tongue back into his mouth. John groaned deeply, a rough and broken sound.

"This is terribly forward of me, and I _swear_ I don't do it often," John whispered into Sherlock's ear when next they parted for a few hurried, shallow breaths, "but would you like to come back to my flat?"

Sherlock rocked his hips against John's, once, feeling the hot swell of the doctor's erection against his balls, a coy smile firmly in place on his lips. "I'd like that," he replied, bending his head to lick and nuzzle the warm hollow underneath John's ear. "I think we'd better go now," he added. "The barman's giving us nasty looks."

John chuckled and kissed him again, but it was a softer, warmer kiss, and before long it was over and they were standing up, brushing themselves off, Sherlock making a self-conscious sweep of his hand through his hair and nodding at an imaginary barman. John guided him to the coat-hooks by the door with a hand on the small of his back, asserting his control over Sherlock in a gentle and subtle way. His spine tingled pleasantly. The doctor helped him into his coat, placing a soft kiss on his cheek as he pulled away. Sherlock felt his cheeks turn helpfully pink. John's lips were so defined against his cheek he felt as though he could feel every crease in them, as individual as a fingerprint.

"Nice place," he commented airily as John showed him into his own bedroom. His flatmate chuckled again.

"It's perhaps not as tidy as it could be," John replied, a tiny smirk lifting the corners of his mouth.

Sherlock turned his back on the pile of yesterday's clothing on the floor, rolling his eyes at John. "That doesn't matter," he rebutted wryly. "This is lovely."

John hummed, smiling cheerfully and crowding Sherlock against the door, cupping his chin with one hand. "It'll do nicely," he agreed, leaning forwards and kissing him again.

It was another deep, _knowing_ kiss, and Sherlock shied away from it almost without realising it. John allowed him to pull away, stroking at his cheek in comfort. "It's been a long time since someone took care of you, hasn't it?"

Sherlock looked away awkwardly, pretending that he had intended to break the kiss. "I've made a lot of bad judgment calls when it comes to men," he said quietly.

"Not tonight," John breathed, his lips trailing so softly where his fingers had been on Sherlock's face. "Trust me. I'll take care of you."

He closed his eyes, his swallow loud in the otherwise-silent bedroom. "All right," he whispered. He swallowed again, watching flames dance in John's eyes as he smiled. "All right."

John kissed him again, gently, cupping the nape of his neck; Sherlock could feel his short fingers playing with the curls that rested there. The kiss was soft, pleasant; John was caressing him with his tongue, his other arm snaking around his back to hold him tight, his breath falling softly against Sherlock's cheek. He melted into it, surrendering himself to John, feeling the answering smirk against his lips.

It was interesting, this form of control. Because John _was_ in control, there could be no doubt about it: the placement of his hands on Sherlock's body effectively caged him, not _preventing_ escape but certainly discouraging it. And with John's hands and lips and tongue on him, _in_ him, he didn't want to escape. He trusted John because he knew him, but he could completely understand how Stephens could make people trust him within hours of their meeting, if he kissed them all this carefully. John kissed as though he had been waiting for this moment all of his life.

He broke away after a moment to breathe heavily against Sherlock's neck, feeling the pulse race under his forehead. "Will you give yourself to me?" he asked quietly, pressing soft kisses to the trembling skin of Sherlock's throat. "Let me make up for all the things _he_ did to you?" His hand traced gently over Sherlock's cheek, stroking imaginary bruises left by imaginary lovers.

Sherlock let out a long, shaking breath, and nodded. John smiled warmly and placed one chaste kiss on his still-open mouth. "Undress and lie down," he requested gently.

He wondered if John had forgotten that Stephens had tied her up, but he stripped his jacket and toed off his socks before climbing onto the bed, leaning back on his elbows and watching as John copied his motions of undressing. He whistled mockingly. John grinned at him, his expression darkening slightly as he climbed over him. He settled between his legs as Sherlock spread them, dampening down a sudden longing for the intimacy, the eroticism, the smooth feeling of skin on warm skin. He ran his hands up John's bare arms instead, smiling softly.

John looked down at the touch and frowned. "This is about _you_ ," he murmured softly, kneeling up in order to remove Sherlock's hands and replace them above his head. "Will you let me tie them there? Trust _me_ with your pleasure? I'll make sure you can get out if you need to –"

"Of course," Sherlock interrupted. "But… I want to please _you_ as well, it's not fair if I –"

"Shh," John susurrated, kissing him into silence while he leaned over the bed in search of something to tie Sherlock's hands up with. "Pleasing you will give me pleasure." He kissed him again, then frowned. "The tape?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at the empty bedside table.

Sherlock frowned. "They used a scarf," he replied, lifting his head to glance at the coats and jackets on the floor, "but mine's in the living room – the tape's in the top drawer of the table."

John grinned briefly before leaning over again and flicking the drawer open. Sherlock almost expected him to comment on the box of condoms and the open bottle of lubricant, but he merely lifted an amused eyebrow at them and lifted the tape from its place beside them. He could have put it somewhere different, using it as he was for work – ostensibly, at least – but he liked having it beside the things that he used for pleasure, whether John drew the same conclusion or not.

He held still while John bound his wrists together, enjoying the innocuous slide of their chests against each other as John shifted. "Comfortable?" John asked, tapping the tape holding his wrists against the bars of his bedhead.

"Enough," Sherlock replied quietly. "Kiss me?" He made sure to say it like a plea rather than a demand, and John smiled as he complied, readjusting his body against Sherlock's so that he could feel the weight of him pressing him down, the kiss subduing him until his hips rocked unconsciously forward against John's thighs. He was _so_ hard; how was it fair that John could do that to him with a few kisses and the _promise_ of something more?

But when he rocked his hips up John was hard too, so it was quite clearly not just Sherlock who was affected by this. He smiled against John's lips, his head lifting automatically when they parted from his to chase them back.

John chuckled softly. He stroked Sherlock's cheek with one rough finger, watching him with fond eyes. "You're so gorgeous like this," he said softly, and something in his voice made Sherlock wonder whether he meant the words for _him_ or for the character he was playing. He smiled shyly back anyway, attempting to shrug the praise away without words.

The doctor kissed the tip of Sherlock's nose with an over-the-top smooching sound, then slid himself slowly down Sherlock's body, pressing soft lips against his neck, the exposed skin of his collarbone, looking coyly up at Sherlock as he rested his cheek against the swell of his pectoral and moved one hand up to brush over his nipple. Sherlock twitched involuntarily as the touch of John's fingers sent a shock to his groin, a whimper escaping his lips. John grinned wickedly, twisting his fingers without warning to pinch at his nipple, turning his head so that his lips rested on the other. Sherlock gasped desperately at the sensation, trying to remember the name of the victim John was pretending to be in order to gasp _that_.

" _Vince_ ," he murmured after a moment's vague thought; it was difficult to muster declarative memories when John's fingers were playing with his nipple. John grinned again – then he bit down sharply on Sherlock's other nipple, making him cry out and rut his hips up against John's stomach. " _God,_ " he whispered, as John laughed and the sound vibrated through where they were connected, sending thrills through his chest to his throbbing cock. "Please, take me," he begged, almost attempting to sit up before remembering that his hands wouldn't let him.

John released his nipples with a last tweak and slid further down his body. "I don't think so," he replied easily, flipping Sherlock a nonchalant smile. "I think he'd have made her come like this before he took her."

His hands slipped down Sherlock's belly, toyed with the button on his trousers. For a crazy moment Sherlock thought he would undo it, undo the trousers and touch Sherlock's bare penis, but then the moment passed and John's hand moved down to the head of his cock as it rubbed gently against the now-damp fabric of his pants. " _Oh_ ," slipped from Sherlock's mouth. "Oh, please…"

The friction of his head against damp pants quickly turned from pleasurable to painful and Sherlock whimpered, trying to edge away from the touch. John smiled softly and shifted his hand down further, kneading and massaging Sherlock's balls, sending throbs of pleasure up the length of his cock. "Too much?" he murmured, looking up sympathetically.

Sherlock tried to shrug, but the movement didn't come out quite the way he had intended through his bound wrists, so he hummed uncomfortably instead. "Only right there – ah! Don't stop, please, Vince."

John's smirk flickered at the sound of the false name – so minutely Sherlock would almost wonder if he imagined it were he not so adept at reading microexpressions. He hitched it quickly back into place and continued the relentless massage up the base of Sherlock's cock, watching his legs twitch helplessly. "Talk to me," John murmured softly. Sherlock moaned, remembering John's assertions that he would have made her come before he considered taking her.

"A little harder," he suggested, squirming as John complied. "Ah! Yes – faster, Vince, please, I need – oh, _oh, please!"_ John's hand pressing down on his cock stilled as he affected a shudder and a series of gasps. He'd never pretended to orgasm before, but he supposed as he was pretending to be someone else – a _woman_ , no less – it didn't really matter how ridiculous he looked. Sherlock had only ever seen one woman come in real life, and he wouldn't be caught mimicking _her_ actions in front of anyone.

He had squeezed his eyes shut and thrown his head back while John watched him shake and moan, keeping the pressure even on his cock as though to guide him through his climax. Once he felt it had gone on for long enough, he subsided, opening his eyes and smiling blearily down at John. "Now you," he pleaded, trying to reach out but being stopped by the tape still holding his hands above his head. "Please, Vince."

John smiled at him, giving his penis one last indulgent rub before climbing over him and pressing their mouths together, open and wet and messy. "You're _so_ beautiful," he breathed against Sherlock's lips. "That was incredible. _God_ , I want you so much."

Sherlock spread his legs suggestively, letting John slide more solidly against him and kissing him frantically. "Then have me," he told him, arching an eyebrow as coyly as he could. John groaned, reaching down to adjust himself in his trousers, like he was steadying himself to thrust in.

He sighed when John pushed his hips down, as though taking John inside his body had alleviated some ache deep inside of him. He could almost feel the ache himself. John groaned again, deep and rough as though the sound was pulled right from his groin. "God," he moaned softly. Sherlock whimpered agreement.

He knew he wouldn't be able to get through much of this without coming. He supposed it had been bound to happen sooner or later. John took a shaky breath in and began to roll his hips firmly against Sherlock's, the slow, relentless friction positively maddening. His hands slid slowly down Sherlock's chest, revelling in the feeling of his shirt against his skin, and settled on his hips, clutching tight as he rocked.

Sherlock tipped his head back and moaned until John's hand reached back up to his face, his pace increasing slightly, the hand that was still at his hips tightening until Sherlock began to feel he would have a mark the shape of the dome in his trousers for hours after they finished. The tiny bites of pain from the friction and the pressure blended with the pleasure building in waves until he could barely tell them apart, until the moans still spilling from his lips were entirely involuntary.

John continued to thrust harder and faster, but it wasn't enough – Sherlock's cock throbbed until he was utterly desperate. He _needed_ more, needed harder and faster still until the role-play no longer mattered. "John," he said sharply, jerking his hips up to attempt to convey what he needed. " _John_ , please, I –"

"All right," John whispered, pressing his hips down hard against his. "Take what you need, Sherlock."

Sherlock whimpered again, biting his bottom lip as he lifted his hips frantically against the now-solid weight of John's, feeling the pressure and the binding pleasure build until he wanted to scream with it. " _J-John!_ " he cried instead as it took him, clutching the other man's waist with his legs and heaving ragged breaths into his lungs, feeling his heart beat wildly as though it were no longer a part of him.

John gasped as though he had not been expecting to hear his own name and folded into Sherlock, shuddering and _coming_ ; he could feel the mad pulsing of his flatmate's cock matching his own. The doctor's arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding him tightly until the two of them stopped convulsing and faded into pants and shivers.

John didn't let him go, even when the mess in Sherlock's trousers bled uncomfortably through them. It seemed like it would fuse them together if they didn't move, but Sherlock wasn't sure he was entirely opposed to the prospect. If the fusing wasn't terrifically uncomfortable, that was; his groin began to itch as they lay there and semen soaked into his skin.

He wanted to get up and clean himself off, change back into his pyjama bottoms and then come back and lie down with John and fall asleep in his arms.

And why not? If he wasn't mistaken, and he didn't think he was, John had come because he had heard his own name in Sherlock's voice. He couldn't get more concrete proof than that that John wanted him.

"John," he said quietly, shifting his shoulders and cursing the tape holding his arms away, "I wonder if –"

His phone rang from inside his discarded jacket pocket. Sherlock swore. For a moment he considered not answering it – it wasn't Scotland Yard, he could tell by the ringtone – but it could be relevant to the case. Far more relevant than what they'd just done. He sighed. "Could you cut me free?" he asked John.

The doctor chuckled, but his heart wasn't in the noise. He leaned over to fish the scissors out of the bedside drawer and cut through the tape; Sherlock flexed his wrists as John rolled off him and adjusted himself again.

"Sherlock Holmes," he answered briskly, trying to sound as though he hadn't just come in his pants after a bit of casual frottage with his flatmate and then been interrupted before he could declare undying love.

The voice was deep, mellifluous, and whispering frantically. "Mister Holmes? It's Jake Henzell."

He sat up sharply, glancing at John. Henzell was the other man he had contacted about finding the killer; he had told him he hadn't seen anyone but that he would keep an eye out. "Have you seen her?"

Henzell coughed awkwardly. "One of my regulars just walked in. She's blonde, but I hadn't seen her in a while so I didn't think to mention her. She has bruises all over her face, just like you said – and, now I think about it, I'm pretty sure last time I saw her she was with one of those men you showed me."

Sherlock jumped off the bed, gesturing for John to get up, and jerked open a drawer of his dresser to look for a clean pair of pants. "Can you keep her talking for twenty minutes while I get the police?"

There was a pause. "Yeah," Henzell replied. "But hurry."

He hung up, flinging his phone at John, and yanked a pair of briefs out of his dresser. "Get changed," he told the doctor sharply. "They've found her."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Trigger warning** for the often abysmal way the police handle reports of sexual abuse. Also, there were two places I could have split this and the next chapter; I chose the earlier one, which means that there's no romance in this chapter – but it also means that I've written about two-thirds of the next chapter already. Hooray!

They reached the pub before the police; Sherlock held out an arm to stop John before he went inside, glancing surreptitiously through the window. "We can't do anything until Lestrade gets here," he reminded him. "All we can do is keep her here. Let me do the talking."

John smiled softly and shrugged. "I always do," he replied easily. Sherlock grinned back.

The blonde was sitting at the bar, nursing something brightly-coloured and smiling at Henzell as he kept chatting to her while drawing lager from a tap. Sherlock wondered if she had sat down there of her own volition or if Henzell had taken her there on purpose so that he could talk to her and work at the same time.

"So there's more than one BDSM bar in London?" John asked quietly as they wove their way over there.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "This isn't a BDSM bar," he replied, looking around at the perfectly ordinary patrons. "It's just a pub. The man at the bar doesn't own it, he just bartends here sometimes. He also runs a swing club at his house when he's not here. Some of the people from the club come here because they know him."

John shook his head, smiling ruefully. "It really shouldn't surprise me how well you know your way around the London BDSM and swing scene."

"I could name several reasons for a detective to be familiar with them," Sherlock told him sternly. "Not just finding murderers. Accidental deaths from erotic asphyxiation sometimes look like murder, and vice versa. It's a fairly tight-knit community, everyone knows everyone. Of course, there are people who enjoy and practise that sort of thing who never tell anyone except their partners, but if they're into BDSM, and they're looking for other people who are into it, someone in this community is going to know them. I know two people personally who know almost everyone else who could give me information I might need. You're quite right," he said, looking over at John as they reached the bar. "You shouldn't be surprised."

He lifted a confident hand to Henzell, leaning idly against the bar-top and ignoring the indignant set of John's face. "Jake!" he greeted brightly.

The barman looked up at him and grinned, trying unsuccessfully to keep the relief off his broad face. "Sherlock!" he returned, just as enthusiastically, as if they were old friends. "Good to see you! Scotch neat, is it?"

"Perfect," Sherlock replied. He had winced at the sound of his own name, but the woman didn't flinch or bolt. He supposed he couldn't expect Henzell to be bright enough to use a false name without being told first, but if she knew he was a detective surely she'd be on her guard around him. _Sherlock Holmes_ had become a far more famous name than he would like. At least it seemed to be that ridiculous hat people recognised, rather than his face; he'd often wished that he had _looked_ at the accessory he'd picked up from the theatre before putting it on, but he had to admit that his choosing such a conspicuous one had its advantages. "And a pint of lager for John here. And I know it's short notice, but if we could have a room in the back? We're waiting on a few friends but they'll be here in about five minutes."

Henzell nodded to show that he had understood the veiled reference to the police. "I'll start a tab," he said, tapping at the screen of the till in front of him. "Sherlock, have you met Charlotte? She hasn't been to the club in a while, but maybe you've run into each other?"

Sherlock turned to the woman, straightening into a more commanding posture and looking her up and down with a predatory expression. She smiled demurely, shivering slightly at the attention. Definitely an established submissive, then, not someone who was only in the game for revenge. Especially since Henzell's language suggested she'd been a member of his club for quite some time. "Sherlock Holmes," he introduced, watching her face for any flicker of recognition or panic as he held out a hand.

She took it without either, clasping it carefully. "Charlotte Wilson." Her hands were soft, and without feeling them too obviously he couldn't detect any obvious scarring caused by fingernails. Not that that really meant anything.

"Charmed." He held onto her hand for a moment after he felt her start to pull away, making sure they let go on his terms and not hers. "This is John Watson," he said carelessly, throwing a hand over his shoulder in John's direction but cutting the doctor off when he tried to reply. "So is there any particular reason you haven't been by the club? It would have been delightful to see someone like you there."

Charlotte blushed slightly. "I was in a relationship for a while," she said, turning away and draining the glass of violently red liquid. "Since it ended I haven't felt like going out. Tonight I sort of decided I was ready to put myself out there again."

Sherlock smiled wider, leaning towards her slightly. "Lucky me," he said, lowering his voice further. "What _was_ that red monstrosity? Can I get you another, or would you like a real drink this time?"

She laughed shyly. "It was vodka and raspberry," she told him. "I'd love another."

"Good," he replied easily, gesturing to Henzell and nonchalantly sipping his own drink. He turned his attention more obviously to the bruises on her face, neatly covered up by concealer and foundation but still visible. They looked slightly older than he would have expected, but seeing the lengths she had gone to to cover them up it wasn't unreasonable to assume she had put salve on them to speed their healing. It seemed like the routine of someone who had to hide bruises often. She shifted self-consciously under his scrutiny, her hand twitching around the empty glass as though trying not to touch her face.

"I know what you're looking at," she said softly, "and I'd rather not talk about it. It's not a problem anymore."

Sherlock smiled again. "Of course," he replied. "I'll only say that I am very definitely not like him."

She laughed, light on the surface but with a slightly bitter undercurrent. "Ah, that's what he thought too," she said, lifting the drink Henzell offered her in a mock toast. Sherlock frowned, but before he could reply John kicked him gently under the bar; he looked up to see Lestrade and his team weaving through the bar towards them.

"Ah," he said brightly, gesturing towards them. "Our friends have arrived." He waited until Lestrade was standing right behind Charlotte before dropping the predatory persona he'd affected. "Charlotte Wilson," he said in his own voice. "This man is about to arrest you under suspicion of the murders of Stewart Montgomery, Charles Trent and Vincent Stephens."

Lestrade gave him a stern look before he could say anything else; Charlotte stood up abruptly, her face draining of colour. " _What_?" she cried indignantly. " _Murder_? - but what do you -"

He smiled nonchalantly at the officer - he knew technically he shouldn't have said that himself, but Lestrade didn't even know the woman's name. "You do not have to say anything," the DI interrupted her gruffly, catching her flailing hands and drawing them together behind her back, "however, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned anything you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

Charlotte's face as Lestrade took her away was a mess with angry tears, confusion, indignation, and just a tiny hint of smugness. Sherlock frowned.

"What?" John asked, draining his pint and watching Sherlock swill the dregs of his scotch and stare at the police as they left the pub.

Sherlock sighed as the door swung shut between them, the people around the tables who had been momentarily distracted by the arrest turning back to each other as though nothing had happened. "Something's not quite right," he said softly. "Or rather, a lot of things aren't quite right that could be explained away by themselves, but all together… it could be nothing."

John shook his head. "They can all be explained away - not everything can be perfect, Sherlock."

He drained the glass in his hand and flicked it back down the bar, standing up with another sigh. "Well, we'd better follow them, either way," he said briskly, yanking a fifty-pound note from the inside pocket of his jacket and holding it out towards Henzell. "Thank you," he said to the barman as he took the money. "Keep the change – for your help."

Henzell stared at the fifty. "Thanks, Mr Holmes," he said, sounding slightly bewildered. John chuckled as they wove their way out of the pub.

"You're a sucker," he muttered when they were outside, Sherlock weaving his scarf back around his neck. "Fifty quid for a vodka mixer, a pint of lager and a scotch neat?"

Sherlock shrugged as he waved an arm for a taxi. "I look after the people who help me so that they'll help me again."

John laughed. "Yes, you do," he said, and there was a strange note to his voice. Sherlock watched him curiously as a black cab pulled up beside them. "Well, you fixed my leg the first time we met. Must have seen something you could use in me."

"I certainly saw someone who could run a lot faster without that ridiculous cane," he replied nonchalantly, sliding into the taxi first. "If I'm honest, it was more what you saw in me. You said 'brilliant' when everyone else said 'piss off'. I couldn't let that go."

He watched as John's smile grew, facing away from him into the window. At least it was the truth. "Match made in heaven, then," the doctor muttered to the glass. Sherlock smiled at him. It certainly was, though he hadn't quite known it at the time.

_John, about before_ …

He could say it. He _could_ – have the whole issue wrapped up before they even got to Scotland Yard and jump on the doctor the moment they got home. The idea was desperately appealing.

The cabbie coughed, a deep, dangerous, wet cough that made Sherlock shudder and jolted him sharply back into the moment. It had taken him so long and he'd had to be so certain of John before he could think about telling _him_ ; he couldn't reveal so much of himself with a stranger watching. Not to mention he wasn't sure he could keep his hands off John once the barrier had been lowered, not even for long enough to close the case. The balance between his desire to _say something_ and his doubt in his own self-control was dangerously close.

Sherlock took a deep breath, then reached out and put a hand on John's knee instead. Without looking at him, John casually rested his own hand on top of it, staring out the window as though nothing had happened. Sherlock's stomach glowed.

* * *

Donovan was standing outside the interrogation room when they arrived at New Scotland Yard wearing a bitter, disgruntled expression; she sighed grumpily when she saw them, pushing the door open and attempting to stare Sherlock down as they passed her. Charlotte was sitting at a table, her cuffed hands resting on her lap, looking pale and frightened but still confused, and still with that tiny hint of smug pleasure. Sherlock frowned at her.

Politely, Lestrade had waited until they arrived before asking any questions. Charlotte eyed Sherlock angrily when he walked in. "Is he a police officer? Surely that counts as entrapment."

Lestrade smiled thinly. "Not too up on current events, are you, Miss Wilson? That's Sherlock Holmes. He's not with the police, he's a consultant."

"Thank God," Sherlock muttered, sliding elegantly into the seat beside Lestrade and pulling it away from the table so that he could lounge idly in it, looking far less concerned than he really was. Something definitely wasn't right – and yet so much _was_ right that it couldn't be chance. She _had_ to be the killer.

Lestrade reached out and placed a photograph on the table in front of her, watching her closely. "Stewart Montgomery," he said slowly. "Did you know him?"

Charlotte looked wistfully at the photograph. "Yes," she admitted. "I dated him for about a month. He broke it off a week before he died."

She didn't try to reinforce how much she'd liked him, how upset she'd been to hear that he was dead. That was the most common mistake people made, pretending to be too upset about the death of someone they'd killed.

Lestrade pulled out the second photograph and laid it carefully on the table beside the first. "And Charles Trent?"

"I met him _once_ , at a bar about six months ago. We slept together. He wasn't very nice, so I never returned his calls."

Sherlock looked at John, frown still firmly in place. If Montgomery had broken it off with her, would he have agreed to sleep with her a week later? He thought back to that first witness statement, the idea that had sparked the whole role-playing exercise. She had approached him, and the barman hadn't thought he looked hostile or suspicious or even surprised; only smug and seductive. That wasn't the behaviour of a man being approached by a woman he had just let go. _Unless_ she'd called him, arranged a meeting beforehand? She had approached him and they had talked briefly, and then he had taken control, reasserted his dominance over her, perhaps to remind her that he was in control, and there had been the tiniest hint of a five o'clock shadow on John's jaw –

Sherlock took a deep breath. "And you hadn't seen Trent since that night?"

"I told you," Charlotte sighed, looking back at the photograph, "he wasn't very nice."

Lestrade breathed out slowly and put down the third photograph. "Lastly, Vincent Stephens."

Charlotte sucked in a breath through her teeth, her face pinching. "I thought I must have misheard you when you said it in the bar. I didn't even know Vince was dead. We were together for about eight months. I mean, this was over a year ago, but I…" she shrugged, staring pensively at the table. "Vince was a great guy," she finished instead. "I'm sorry to hear he's dead. I didn't do it. I don't know anything about these murders."

"You have to understand why you're here," Lestrade said lowly. "You've had sexual encounters with all three of these men, and from what you've just said alone at least one of them treated you badly. You have to admit you had the motive to kill all three of them."

Sherlock narrowed his eyes at Charlotte as she sighed. "I know. But I don't know anything about this, I swear. I… all three of those men were regulars on the London BDSM scene, I'm not sure if you knew that – the community isn't _that_ big, I can't be the only submissive woman who's known the three of them."

"Tell us about the bruises," Sherlock distracted softly, tipping his chair idly back on its hind legs, feeling John immediately fix his hands on the back so that it didn't tip. He smirked over his shoulder at the doctor before turning back to Charlotte, who was staring fixedly at her hands.

"The night I found out Stewart was dead," she murmured, her tone of voice making it quite clear she'd hoped she'd never have to talk about this again. "I… I went out. I wanted to drink to forget, you know - Amy, my flatmate, wasn't there, or she would have tried to stop me. I ended up drunk enough that when a man invited me into an alley it seemed like a good idea, until he put his hands on me, and then when I said no he gave me these," she gestured towards her face, "and then walked off."

Lestrade leaned forwards, frowning concernedly. "He didn't rape you? Just hit you and left?"

Charlotte shook her head, still not looking at them. "Don't tell me I'm lucky, or that I should be _grateful_ or _relieved_ somehow that he didn't rape me."

"We weren't going to," Sherlock said, slightly sharply with a glance in Lestrade's direction. He'd seen plenty of interviews of sexual abuse victims handled absolutely terribly by the police; a few times he'd even thrown the officers out of the room and conducted the interview himself, apologising profusely to the victims. It was a sorry state of affairs, he'd remarked to John afterwards, when he was more sensitive and polite than the police. He didn't think that Lestrade would make the same mistakes, but this was _important_ and he couldn't take chances. That kind of attitude suggested that she'd tried to report behaviour like this before, so either she was telling the truth about how she got the bruises or she was recounting a true story from a different time. "Where were you when this happened?"

"Soho," she replied. "At the Ball and Chain, it's a -"

"Members-only BDSM bar, we know," Sherlock cut off, though Lestrade probably didn't know. If she didn't come back inside after being beaten, Eliza wouldn't have picked her out from the other small blonde women she'd mentioned. He sat up properly in his chair, subtly taking control of the interview from Lestrade. "Where were you when you heard about Stewart and Charles?"

She looked up at him and smiled shakily. "Stewart's murder was on the news. I was at home in the flat - Amy was cooking. She dropped something and I was too stupid with shock to help her clean it up. She kept trying to say things to comfort me, but she didn't like Stewart so I knew she didn't mean them. That's why I left the flat. And then Charlie - I was at work. Someone in my cubicle found out and the whole office was talking about it. It sounds awful, but I was kind of… pleased. I've already said he was horrible. I think I said something terrible, like good riddance or something."

Sherlock's doubts grew as the interview went on; her alibis for all three murders were shaky at best, but she could repeat them back to front and inside out with a genuine amount of thought and they didn't seem rehearsed. After an hour he gave up his chair to John, who was swaying where he stood and had an early shift tomorrow. After two he suggested that the doctor go home and let Sherlock deal with this, but John stoutly refused and attempted to pretend he hadn't been falling asleep in the chair while Sherlock paced frenetically and Lestrade patiently put question after question to Charlotte. When John fell asleep around midnight they left him that way, lowering their voices slightly and watching him to make sure he didn't slip out of the chair. By four a.m. their questions had derailed from asking about the murders and her relationships with the victims and turned to her home life, questioning her as a victim rather than a suspect.

He wasn't as surprised as he ought to have been when Donovan interrupted them with a panicked look and a phone at her ear to tell them there had been another murder.

"Where?" Lestrade asked, looking as though he was trying very hard not to punch the wall of the corridor she had taken them into.

"Kensington," Donovan supplied, hanging up the phone and tapping it obnoxiously against the meat of her palm.

The DI sighed. "We have to go. That interview was going nowhere anyway, we'd already guessed it wasn't her. Strange, though, that she'd dated all three of them."

Sherlock shook his head. "It's like she said. The London BDSM community isn't that big. And she didn't exactly _date_ Trent."

Donovan shifted impatiently. "What do we do with her, then? Let her go?"

"Keep her until we've looked at the scene. You're right, she fit the profile of what we're looking for so closely it's a terrific coincidence." Lestrade nodded at Sherlock's words as though it had been his suggestion. "And when you do let her go, take her right back to her house. Actually _walk_ her to her door, see if you can talk to her flatmate about her dating habits, whether she ever tries to talk her out of her weakness for the wrong kind of men. If she's not a killer, she's certainly got a high-risk lifestyle for domestic abuse."

They looked back through the observation window to Charlotte, picking absently at her cuticles and shooting anxious glances at the door. "Call for someone to sit with her while we're at the scene," Lestrade said to Donovan. "Get her a cup of tea, maybe breakfast."

Sherlock's eyes fell on John in the chair opposite her, head bowed, clearly still asleep. He smiled fondly. "I'll get John," he ventured.

Lestrade sighed. "Try to send him home, will you? He looks like he hasn't slept in days."

"He has work in three hours," Sherlock said, checking his watch with a tiny smile. "I'll be advising him to call in sick, at the very least."

Sherlock knelt in front of the doctor and shook him gently. "John," he murmured. "John, time to wake up."

John started, waking with a sharp breath in and focusing slowly on Sherlock. Within moments, he had registered his surroundings and adopted a look of dismay. "I fell asleep," he stated, sounding somewhat indignant.

"Yes, you did," Sherlock told him. "Come on, now, we've got to go." He looked over at Charlotte while he helped John to his feet. "Someone else will be in in about five minutes to continue the interview," he said, trying to smile at her. "It shouldn't be too much longer now. I'm sorry that we had to do this to you."

John frowned at him as they left. "Not the murderer, then?"

"Unfortunately not," Sherlock replied. "There's been another murder."

"Okay," the doctor said brightly, rolling out a few cricks in his neck. "Where are we going?"

Sherlock frowned at him. " _You_ are going home," he said firmly. "You just fell asleep at an interrogation desk. And I suggest you call in sick for your early shift at the surgery, too."

John shrugged, earning a crack from his back as well. "I've slept now, I'll be fine. I'll call the surgery, but I'm coming with you to the new crime scene."

" _John_ ," Sherlock tried to say sternly.

" _Sherlock_ ," John replied in the same tone of voice. Lestrade snorted.

Sherlock sighed. "All right, fine. Let's go, then."


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look how good I am - I wrote most of this while my boss was out at a 'meeting'. Hey, if he's allowed to get paid to go on a tour of a fire-engine factory, I'm allowed to get paid for writing fanfiction. These are my terms. Also, parts of it got uncontrollably angsty, so there might be more feels in the next chapter than I'd wanted, but hey.

The scene was a mess; the bedside table had been knocked over, its contents strewn over the floor. The body was on the floor beside it, evidently having upended it when it fell off the bed. John whistled lowly.

"This is incredibly desperate," Sherlock remarked, peering down at the body. The man was in a similar state of dishabille to Montgomery, trousers unzipped just enough that a still condom-clad cock poked out of the vee left behind. "But from what I've seen of Charlotte Wilson, it wasn't the work of someone like her. It's very heat-of-the-moment, emotional - once she'd killed him she ran without any of the forensic countermeasures she's used in the past. Charlotte couldn't have done something this emotional and then flirted with someone in a bar hours later. Assuming that this _wasn't_ done while she was with us, which it looks like it was."

He held out a hand and Lestrade filled it with a pair of latex gloves; Sherlock bent and peeled the condom away from the man's penis. "Do we have ID?" he asked.

"Andrew Pearson," Lestrade read off a piece of paper on the desk by the window. "Donovan, call the office and run that through the system."

There was a considerable amount of seminal fluid in the condom when Sherlock turned it inside-out, but not as much as he would have expected. "He didn't finish," he commented, flicking it deftly right-way-round again and slipping it into the evidence bag Lestrade handed him. "From the amount of pre-ejaculate I'd say she started strangling him when he was close - probably when he lost control of himself. Maybe he did something that reminded her too much of Stephens."

John looked oddly amused by Sherlock's evaluation of the condom. He lifted an eyebrow at him and the doctor shook his head and looked away, smiling slightly. Sherlock turned his eyes back to the body. "He put up a fair fight," he evaluated, looking up at the rumpled bedclothes. "Tried to gain the upper hand by rolling them over and that's how they fell off the bed." He felt the man's head with his gloved hands; one of them came away sticky with congealed blood. "She was probably only able to overpower him because he hit his head on the bedside table."

Sherlock picked up Pearson's hand to check his fingernails. "He was married," he noted with surprise, indicating the tan-line from a wedding ring. "Probably recently divorced, since he lived here by himself. Might want to check that anyway, they could only be separated and you'd need to notify the wife yourself." Lestrade looked at Donovan, who gave him her customary look of disapproval that Sherlock seemed to regard Lestrade's team as his own and the DI just went along with it, but her next question into the phone regarded Pearson's marital status anyway. "Blood under his fingernails," he assessed. "Tried to defend himself any way he could. I'd say in terms of style he was more like Trent."

"Violently dominant bordering on abusive?" Lestrade clarified. Sherlock gave him a sharp nod as he scanned the rest of the man's body, picking up a million details about his life and habits but nothing else useful to the case. "Forensics are on their way," he mentioned after a few more minutes of Sherlock's silence. "I'm heading back to the Yard, they can fill me in later. Try not to annoy them too much," the DI said wearily, giving Sherlock a stern look. "I'll go and take Charlotte home."

"Ask her if she knows Pearson," Sherlock called after him.

Donovan hung up the phone as her Inspector left the room. "He was a DCE with O2, two arrests for drunk and disorderly but nothing came of either of them. The divorce was finalised almost a month ago, so I'll get someone to tell the ex-wife when the sun comes up."

Sherlock nodded perfunctorily. "Thank you, Sergeant Donovan," he said politely. John's badly-hidden smile widened at a similar rate to Donovan's eyes, but neither said anything in reply. "We'll wait for forensics, but I doubt they'll find anything. All they can really do is DNA check the condom and fingerprint the rest of the house, and all that will prove is that it's the same killer as the others, which is obvious already. I think this is all we're going to get - she's devolving, and fast. Put something about her distressed behaviour in your press release, maybe someone will phone in their neighbour acting strangely."

He conducted a quick scan of the room just in case she had left something obvious, a cellphone or a handbag or a wallet, but he wasn't surprised to come up with nothing. They waited while the forensics team conducted a few tests, but Sherlock pulled John out of the room at the first sneer from Anderson, commanding Donovan to call him when they finished. He didn't think they would find anything, and he didn't want to sit around and _watch_ them not find anything when he could be role-playing the situation with John back at home.

"I was so sure it was her," the doctor remarked in the cab back to Baker Street.

Sherlock shook his head distantly. "It was always a possibility, that there'd be more than one young blonde submissive with bruises all over her face. The fact that she'd dated all of the victims makes it more complicated. There's so much that was right about her that makes for a hell of a big coincidence considering she isn't the killer. It just doesn't make _sense_ ," he cursed, curling his hands into fists in frustration.

John put a comforting hand on Sherlock's thigh, which only served to completely distract his attention from the case. Another murder meant that they could role-play again. But there were so many things that he could be doing instead that would be more useful to the case, and he had just made up his mind to _tell_ John what he really wanted and stop pretending.

The thing was, pretending was so much easier, and so much less risky. If he told John how he felt there was a possibility - a small one, but a possibility nonetheless - that John would turn him down and he'd never get to touch him again. He had an excuse to have John one more time before he had to put himself on the line, as it were, and wouldn't he be stupid not to take it?

He stared at the hand on his thigh until John shifted it uncomfortably, at which point Sherlock reached out and removed it. "That's not helping," he said quietly, turning to look out the window so that John wouldn't see the tiny pink flush he could feel creeping up his neck. He could feel John looking at him from the other side of the taxi and see the amused little smile in his mind's eye.

_Charlotte_ , he forced himself to think. It was theoretically possible that she was working with someone, perhaps supplying them with the victims' names and whereabouts and letting the other person murder them, which would account for the smugness in her expression when she'd been arrested. But that smugness could also be explained by the fact that Trent, at the very least, had treated her badly and she was glad he was dead. She'd been unusually calm in the interrogation room, but that was unusual for the guilty as well as the innocent. People attempting to hide their guilt often overacted their anger at being arrested and their grief for the dead, but Charlotte had made no secret of the fact that Stephens was the only one whose death had really upset her, and once he and Lestrade had allowed her to see the fact that there were holes in their case against her she had relaxed considerably.

She couldn't have killed Montgomery, and he didn't believe that she would have killed Stephens. Was there an explanation that still _involved_ her without _implicating_ her at all? He had the irritating feeling that the answer was in the enormous shadow being cast by _John_ at the forefront of his mind, because every time he tried to think about it he thought about John instead.

The cab pulled up outside Baker Street, jolting Sherlock out of his thoughts. He needed to find out whether Charlotte had known Andrew Pearson. If she hadn't, then he could consider dismissing her connections to the others.

And in the meantime, he may as well go over the murder with John.

The doctor dragged his feet a little up the stairs; Sherlock held the flat door open for him, his stomach jittering slightly with anticipation. John didn't meet his eyes as he walked past him into 221B.

"I have a theory," Sherlock exaggerated briskly, striding into the kitchen and filling the kettle. "But it relies on Charlotte knowing the latest victim. If she didn't, it's more likely that her knowing the others was just coincidence. While we wait for Lestrade to call it would be beneficial to go over the latest murder, perhaps get an idea of what it was that made her strangle him early."

John followed him into the kitchen and planted his feet, shoulders back, a glint of steel in his eyes. "No," he said flatly. "No, I won't."

Sherlock stared at him. "What do you mean?" he asked, floored. He felt rather like he had accidentally shifted to first gear instead of fifth in the middle of the A45. He had never even considered that John wouldn't _want_ to role-play the scenario with him. What if John had _never_ wanted to, and had only done it for the sake of the case, the way he reluctantly joined him on uncomfortable stake-outs or pretended to be drunk or infirm while Sherlock lured in suspects?

John crossed his arms, his eyes still blazing with finality and determination. "I mean I won't role-play with you anymore. This is ridiculous, and it's gone on for long enough."

"But…" Sherlock floundered, his mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. "But I _need_ it. For the _case_ , John."

He struggled to come up with a more coherent and less revealing argument, but his mind kept returning to the idea that John had never _wanted_ to role-play with him, which meant that he had misread all of the signals he thought he'd been getting, which brought the likelihood that John wanted _him_ down considerably. John was shaking his head, arms still crossed resolutely. "You don't _need_ it," he said derisively. "You and I both know that role-playing these murders hasn't helped you in the slightest. Your reasons for doing it have got more and more flimsy and ridiculous since that first one and it's just stopping you from doing other things that might _actually_ help you."

Sherlock didn't have an adequate response to that. It was completely true, and he knew it. "You could have had this case solved _days_ ago if you hadn't been distracted by this, and you know it," John continued. "These role-plays are the only thing you've actually done to try and solve this case, and you know it's not up to your usual brilliance."

"I've done other things," Sherlock tried quietly. "I found Charlotte."

John snorted. "You called a few people in the hope that _they_ could find something and then sat around waiting for them to come through. That's what _I_ would have done. It's what Lestrade and Donovan would have done. _Jake_ found Charlotte, and she's not even the person you were looking for."

There was silence while Sherlock tried and failed to find something to defend himself with. The kettle reached the boil noisily and clicked itself off.

"You know what the worst part is?" John said quietly, watching as Sherlock took down two mugs and the box of PG Tips just to have something to do with his hands. "I didn't _want_ you to solve the case."

Sherlock dropped the box of teabags, the little packets skittering gleefully across the kitchen floor. "What?" he asked before he could stop himself.

John shrugged resignedly. "I wanted this to go on for as long as possible so we could keep role-playing. Every time someone else was murdered my heart leapt - I was _happy_ that someone had died because it meant that I could _pretend_ to sleep with you again."

Sherlock swallowed. "What are you saying?" he asked, his voice barely audible even to himself.

" _Fuck_ , Sherlock, what do you think I'm saying?" John snapped, flapping his arms in frustration. "I _want you_. I want _us_ , for real. I think I've always wanted you, I just didn't recognise it for a while. And then I thought you were… married to your work, so completely not interested that the idea of sex didn't even occur to you, so I stopped myself from wanting you. But…" He subsided, leaning against the doorframe, his entire demeanour changing. "Then that first murder, I found out that not only were you interested in sex, but you were interested in sex with _men_ , and I got the tiniest glimpse of what it would be like if you were interested in sex with _me_. And that… that's a door I don't think I can close."

He realised his mouth was open and closed it before he started drooling. "You…" he started before he'd quite worked out how to finish. "You want sex with me."

"I want _everything_ with you," John corrected. "And you know I do, Sherlock. You've known it for days now. And I've known you do for days too. And people are _dying_ because we're pussyfooting around it instead of putting it out in the open and acknowledging it." He stepped forwards, taking a deep breath that shook slightly. "I want you," he said clearly. "And you want me." Sherlock said nothing, still scrambling to pull his thoughts together enough to form a coherent response, and John's face faltered slightly. "Don't you?" he asked.

Sherlock snapped back into action at the look on the doctor's face. "Of course I do," he almost shouted, flying forwards and pulling John into a tight, slightly clumsy hug, his feet slipping on a cluster of teabags. "I've always known I've wanted you. _All_ of you, _everything_ with you - I want to listen to your breathing as I fall asleep and hold your hand in the back of the taxi on the way to crime-scenes. I _want_ sex with you, but it's secondary - I have fewer barriers with you than I do with anyone else. I want it to be acknowledged that there are _no_ barriers between us, that I'm completely comfortable with you. I want complete physical and emotional intimacy." He paused, running his hands firmly up John's back, enjoying the feeling of him close, the warmth of them bleeding through their clothes until they shared the _same_ warmth. "I know that's a lot to ask for."

John shook his head, his hair rubbing softly against Sherlock's neck. "We already have most of it," he said, a smile audible in his voice. "I don't think it's a lot at all."

They released each other, stepping apart, the air between them gaping awkwardly. Sherlock wanted to step forwards and kiss the doctor, but he wasn't quite sure how to.

"Well," John said, another smile creeping up on his face. "I think we should throw out the idea of role-playing sex as other people and just have sex as ourselves. With each other. And _without_ clothes."

Sherlock grinned. "You know, John," he said conversationally, "sometimes I think I don't give you nearly enough credit for your good ideas."

John flashed a grin back. "I think that quite often, actually," he quipped, and then they were reaching for each other as though it was perfectly natural, John's hand sliding into the hair at the nape of Sherlock's neck, Sherlock's own taking up their previous position around the doctor's hips as their lips connected.

It was wonderful, slow and sweet but heavy, laden with relief and anticipation. Sherlock shuddered and crushed their bodies together, parting his lips and reasserting their mouths against each other until John was backed against the doorframe with Sherlock's hands on either side of his neck.

He wouldn't have called it _chaste_ , what they were doing, but there was no urgency to it, a languid slide of lips on lips until Sherlock parted his further and touched at John's lower lip with his tongue.

John's hand got caught in Sherlock's hair and pulled, the doctor's hips rocking up against Sherlock's so that he could feel the stirring of his groin, and then suddenly there _was_ urgency; Sherlock pressed John hard against the doorframe, claiming each other's mouths until their tastes combined and it still wasn't enough, he still needed _more_. He reached down and flicked open the button on John's trousers, earning a rich groan from the doctor and a sharp bite to his lower lip.

Sherlock's phone rang again.

The vibrations shook their ribcages together as Sherlock separated their lips angrily, sliding his own down John's delightfully flushed cheek. "For fuck's sake," he growled furiously. It was the ringtone he had assigned to Lestrade, probably answers to the questions he had forgotten about asking. The temptation to throw the phone across the room was immense, but he'd never build up the stock of contacts again if it broke.

"Don't answer it," John suggested, bending his head to kiss and bite at the soft underneath of Sherlock's jaw.

He moaned softly, but the phone was still ringing, distracting him. "It's Lestrade," he protested. "It'll be important."

John only bit him harder, but Sherlock pulled himself reluctantly away and yanked the phone out of his jacket pocket. "Lestrade?" he answered impatiently.

"Yeah," the DI replied. There was a funny sort of background noise on the other end of the phone; Sherlock guessed that he was calling from a police car. "Look, we just dropped Charlotte off, walked her right to the door, like we said - she did know Pearson, by the way, she says he was the man from the bar who gave her the bruises."

Sherlock took a sharp breath in and put his hand over John's where it was trailing cheekily down his stomach to stop it. "Three I could have dismissed as coincidence. Four I have more trouble with. _She_ had no idea about the murders, so it must have been someone doing it _for_ her, maybe to _protect_ her…"

His eyes fell on John again and quite suddenly, jarringly, he remembered the casual look on John's face the day after they met, hours after John had shot a man to save Sherlock's life. " _Oh_." John removed his hand, his face turning taut with anticipation. Sherlock was rather relieved that he was still willing to drop everything for the case. "The flatmate."

Lestrade cleared his throat. "It was still only half six when we turned up, but she was sitting in the middle of the living room, sobbing. Blonde, with bruises all over her face, even worse than Charlotte's. And fresh scratches all down her arms."

"And you arrested her?" Sherlock prompted.

"Nah, we just left her there," the DI replied with an unnecessary level of sarcasm. "Of course we arrested her. We're on our way back to the Yard now."

Sherlock nodded, looking at John. "So are we," he said quickly, hanging up without waiting for a response. "It was Charlotte's flatmate," he explained to the doctor, starting to move past him before remembering that this might be considered rude and pausing in the doorway expectantly. "They've arrested her and they're on their way to the station, I said we'd meet them there. Is that… okay?"

John smiled, but there was disappointment in his eyes. "This has waited for so long I hardly think a few more hours to put a murderer away is going to kill it," he replied. "We've done the important bit now. Like you said, the sex is secondary."

"That doesn't mean I don't want it desperately," Sherlock reminded him, grinning. John just laughed in response, patting him on the arm in a consolatory manner and starting towards the door. "Why didn't you say something earlier?" Sherlock asked when they had their coats on, slipping his hand comfortably into John's as he pulled the door closed behind him.

John shrugged. "Why didn't _you_?" he shot back, tightening his fingers to squash Sherlock's between them. "Like I said, before that first role-play I didn't even know you were interested in sex. I didn't want to come on too strong and scare you away." He giggled suddenly as they stepped back out onto the street. "And then I thought, if a few violent and abusive bastards had to die so that you and I could get this right, then so be it."

Sherlock laughed. "Quite right, too," he assessed.

* * *

Charlotte had apparently ridden in the police car all the way back to the Yard when her flatmate was arrested, and was now standing at the viewing window with Donovan, picking nervously at her cuticles and watching her disheveled friend refusing to answer Lestrade's questions.

Sherlock entered quietly and closed the door behind him, leaving John outside with Charlotte and unobtrusively taking a seat in the corner of the room. Lestrade knew his interrogation strategies by now and cast him an irritated glare before ignoring him.

"Miss Lancaster," Lestrade continued as though Sherlock wasn't there, "we have your DNA at the laboratory. You were careful enough not to leave fingerprints, but several hairs were recovered from more than one crime-scene. Not telling us everything in this interview will only harm your defence when this goes to trial."

Amy Lancaster didn't seem to be listening, merely staring angrily at Sherlock. "Who's he? I saw that look you gave him when he walked in. Is he allowed to be here?"

Lestrade frowned at her. "Mr Holmes is a consultant with the police," he said sternly. "If he wasn't allowed to be here, I wouldn't have let him into the room."

Technically, Sherlock _wasn't_ allowed to be there. He had no official agreement giving him the title of consultant for the police, which made him a civilian. It wasn't one of the Yard's most enforced rules. He merely smiled at the woman and crossed one leg over the other in a casual sort of way.

"As I say, Miss Lancaster, we are perfectly able to prove that you are the person we've been looking for. There is no reason not to come clean with us and every reason _to_ do so. We know that at least two of the people you've killed were violent and abusive, and that these weren't random attacks. That could work in your favour if - but _only_ if - you tell us the truth."

Amy sat back in her chair, still looking at Sherlock. "What do _you_ think?" she asked, in the spirit of one determined to be contrary. "You're a consultant, doesn't that mean he should consult you before talking to me?"

Sherlock smiled again. "I'm a consulting _detective_ , Miss Lancaster, not a consulting lawyer. You were offered one of those before this interview began, I'm assuming you turned it down, which was a little foolish of you." She shrugged again; Sherlock knew she'd always intended to tell the truth and was just stalling to have the illusion of control. "I think you should come clean, but not for him," he nodded towards Lestrade, "and not for yourself. I think you should come clean because Charlotte is standing outside watching, and she'll probably want to know exactly why you've been killing every man who's ever looked at her."

Her face fell. A little harsh, perhaps, using Charlotte to guilt-trip her, but Sherlock knew it was the most effective way to get _everything_ from her. "None of this was Charlotte's fault," Amy said, looking directly at the viewing window. "She didn't know anything." She sighed heavily, glancing at Lestrade. "You should have seen her face when she realised that Montgomery prick was dead. He treated her like shit and she still got so upset."

"She's dated a lot of people who treated her like shit, from the sounds of things," Sherlock commiserated.

Amy nodded, still staring at the window. "And it was like she never realised how much more she deserved. She acted like Vincent was God, just because he never hit her. She'd go to that ridiculous club thing in Soho and come back with black eyes and cigarette burns like they were nothing, like that was something she _had_ to do to get what she wanted, and I _know_ she's not into BDSM for the pain. I've tried talking to her so many times… do you have any idea what it's like having someone so _wonderful_ so close and knowing that they think they're absolutely worthless?"

"Yes," Sherlock replied truthfully. "I know several people who I believe fit that description." Molly, for example, seemed to constantly set her sights on men who wouldn't give her what she deserved, including Sherlock himself. He'd even thought that John could do a lot better than the vapid, self-absorbed women he seemed to attract, but he'd largely dismissed that opinion as biased by jealousy.

She nodded again, but this time she was looking intently at Sherlock with a tiny smile at the edge of her mouth. "Not easy, is it," she said sadly. Sherlock wondered what part of it she was talking about, the indignation at the way John was so willing to _settle_ for those women or the wish that he'd realise he could get all of that from _him_. He wondered how much of it she saw in him.

"She came home after finding out about Trent with this little half-smile on her face," Amy said wistfully. "I went after Montgomery because he broke her heart. I wasn't going to _kill_ him, just get close to him and then hurt him the way he hurt her - I didn't really have a plan, but if I had it wouldn't have been anything like what happened. Then when she heard about it and she came home with those bruises, I tracked down Trent because he was the last person I knew had hit her that badly. But then… killing Trent made her _happy_."

Sherlock resisted the urge to look at the viewing screen. From a scientific perspective he would have liked to have Charlotte inside the room, but it most likely would make things a lot harder for both women, so he didn't ask. He kept up his open, sympathetic expression instead, grateful that it was Lestrade who was running the interview and not someone less competent who wouldn't have the sense to keep quiet and let guilt and a need for Charlotte to know everything draw the whole truth out of her.

"I thought if I could show her how little she was upset by all the people she'd devoted so much of her life to _dying_ , she'd realise that she shouldn't be dating them. That there were people out there whom she actually cared about, who actually cared about her."

"People like you," Sherlock finished quietly.

Amy smiled bitterly. "At first I just wanted her to see that it had to be possible for people to dominate her without being _cruel_ to her. I didn't want it to be _me_ who showed her, as long as she found out. Then I started thinking about _how_ I might show her, about how maybe it _had_ to be me who showed her because she'd never listen to anyone else. And then after a while I realised that even if she _did_ find someone who loved her and who would treat her like the miracle she is, I wouldn't want to give her up."

Sherlock sympathised alarmingly well. He'd always known he was attracted to John, but at the start he never would have considered acting on it. Falling in love with John had happened so slowly he hadn't even noticed, just realised all of a sudden after that first pretend kiss that he was there and he'd been there for a while. He nodded slowly, a gesture for the woman to continue.

"I'd do anything for Charlotte," Amy said fiercely, staring at first Sherlock, then Lestrade as though daring them to challenge her. "I'd kill for her." Sherlock beat the amused smirk off his face, but the woman seemed to realise the irony in the statement herself. "I think I've proven that now," she said with a tiny smile. "I _can_ be cruel and violent, I've shown that, but I wouldn't be, not to her."

Lestrade shifted slightly, unfolding his arms and leaning them against the table. "What did you think would happen when we found you?" he asked. "When _Charlotte_ found out that you'd murdered her ex-boyfriends?"

Amy bit her lip and shrugged. "I _didn't_ think about that," she admitted. "I couldn't. I didn't mean to kill Montgomery, and then after that it was already done. Do people usually think about that? Getting caught by _you_ was the last thing on my mind. I was more worried about being caught by Charlotte without having a chance to explain myself."

She sighed, her eyes rising to the viewing window again before lowering to her cuffed hands. "I didn't do it to hurt her," she said, her voice small and pathetic. "I knew that it would, but that wasn't why I did it." Her hands twisted around each other as she stared at them. Then she took a deep breath and looked up at Lestrade. "Is that enough of a statement for you?" she asked. "I don't think I have anything else to say. I know murder was the wrong way to go about things and I didn't chose this road until I was halfway down it, but if it makes Charlotte realise how much she's worth - if it makes her think twice before she goes for someone like that again - then I don't regret it."

Sherlock uncrossed his legs unobtrusively. " _I'm_ done," he said quietly. "I'll leave the rest to you, Inspector."

Lestrade nodded at him, so he stood up and quietly left the room. He hated when murderers were so _human_. This entire case he'd sympathised with her because of the calibre of man she was victimising, but actually meeting her in the flesh, hearing her doing it for the love of her best friend… the case was closed, and he wanted out.

John seemed to recognise his expression and stepped close to him, a subtle hand running reassuringly down his sleeve. "All right?" he asked, quietly so that Donovan wouldn't hear it.

Sherlock nodded minutely. "I'm sorry," he said to Charlotte. "Really, if there's anything I can do."

Ordinary circumstances would have seen him smirking at the bewildered look on Donovan's face. John always seemed to get annoyed at people's beliefs that Sherlock had no emotions or empathy, but Sherlock had worked rather hard to make them believe that in the first place; it wasn't his fault that John made his emotions a lot more obvious.

Charlotte smiled tremulously. "If she'd just _told_ me," she said, her voice breaking. "I thought about it too. Of _course_ I did. She's a naturally dominant person, I'm sure you noticed that. It's why I wanted to be friends with her all those years ago. I love her more than anything else in the world. But she was always so disgusted when we talked about BDSM that I didn't think I could mention it to her."

John let out a heavy breath that sounded a little bit like a curse. Sherlock's lips tightened. He'd suspected that this might be the case, but hearing it from Charlotte's ears in that defeated tone of voice was entirely different. He turned back to the window, searching for something else to say but coming up blank. Charlotte was crowding into him and John like a windbreak, destroying the hope he had had of walking away. He watched instead as Lestrade patted the table with an air of finality and stood, casting a glance towards them through the window. Donovan gestured to the officers standing by the door. "Will you be all right with these two?" she asked Charlotte. "They can show you to Detective Inspector Lestrade's office, and when everything's been processed you can speak to Amy. Or they can take you outside and put you in a cab."

"I want to see her," Charlotte said instantly.

* * *

They tried to leave once Donovan had taken Charlotte out of the office and back to the detention cells to speak to Amy, but Lestrade placed himself carefully between them and the door before shutting it firmly. Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Do we _have_ to do this now?" he asked. All he wanted was to go home and continue where he and John had left off when he called in the first place. The hour they'd spent waiting in Lestrade's office had been enough for the looks between them to shift from reassuring to affectionate to something else entirely, and Sherlock hadn't been willing to rub everything in Charlotte's face by kissing him in front of her.

Lestrade folded his arms and leaned against the closed door. "Just think," he commented, his voice light but an extremely pointed tone to his body language. "This entire case could have been prevented if two people had just _talked_ about their feelings."

Sherlock understood the implication straight away and smiled slightly to himself; John, on the other hand, stared at the DI. "Was that a _hint_?" he asked, sounding indignantly disbelieving. He straightened his shoulders slightly and took a pointed step closer to Sherlock. "We don't really need _hints_ , do we, Sherlock?"

He reached out and took the hand that the doctor was subtly holding out to him. "Actually," he admitted, smiling at Lestrade, "I think a few hints a little earlier might have done _me_ the world of good." He'd kept his attraction to the doctor so closely to his chest that he'd never bothered looking to see if it was returned; if someone had ever suggested to him that John wanted him, maybe he would have said something sooner. "You don't need a statement from us now, do you? John and I have some… _secondary_ business to take care of."

John laughed gleefully, squeezing Sherlock's hand. Lestrade looked from one to the other with an expression that suggested he didn't know whether to be amused or disgusted so he'd gone for resigned instead. "Yeah, of course," he said, flapping his arms. "Come back to me when you don't look like you're about to jump each other in my office."

"Are you sure?" John asked playfully. "Jumping someone in a police Inspector's office has always been a fantasy of mine."

Lestrade's expression tipped over into something distinctly nauseated. "Please leave," he said quietly, though Sherlock could still hear the ghost of a smile in his voice. The two of them obeyed, laughing and holding onto each other's fingers and casting lascivious glances at each other just to hear the DI's groan.

"Secondary business, huh?" John repeated when they had left the Yard.

Sherlock made an affirmative humming noise. "Secondary, but desperately anticipated," he replied.

John laughed. "We'd best get onto that, then," he said happily, dropping Sherlock's hand in order to wind an arm around his hip inside his coat. Sherlock copied the gesture, dropping a kiss onto the top of John's head. "It sounds important."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd say you have no idea how badly I want to write real porn for this story, but you probably do. Best get onto that, then.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At various points during the writing of this chapter, I looked around and thought about how brazen I have become about the writing of porn in public places. Also, this was not supposed to end up where it did, but when it started veering off-course I decided to let it. I may have then got a little carried away by it and spent far too long elaborating on it, but I think a part of me _needed_ this (I may or may not be in Sherlock's position with it).

They sat very close to each other in the cab, John's shoulder rubbing against Sherlock's arm with every breath, their fingers linked together. Sherlock picked up their hands in order to examine John's, the tan which ended at the wrist broken by the pale lines of scars that told so many stories. He could read some of them easily, clean lines from slipped scalpels and tiny nicks from shrapnel and the more recent ones that Sherlock had helped him acquire, but there were some that were more variable, stories that he'd never asked. He liked the idea that there were layers to John he hadn't explored yet, but that he would get the chance to lay John out and draw from him the story of every line in his skin.

"The biggest one happened when I was twenty," John supplied without preamble. Sherlock stroked one finger down the faded white mark that travelled from the second knuckle of his index finger to just below where the life-line crossed the side of his palm, one eyebrow raised to check that this was the scar John meant. "I was very drunk at a friend's twenty-first - Bill Murray's, actually. I walked through a glass door."

Sherlock's eyebrow lifted even higher. "What, you walked right through it?" he asked.

John grinned. "I was an exceptionally bull-headed twenty year-old." Sherlock laughed. "I don't remember much, but Bill still insists that half the people at that party told me not to go that way and I kept waving them all off. I was never a very sensible drunk."

"Is that why you don't drink now?" Sherlock asked. He had often wondered, but never wanted to ask when John came back from a night at the pub with army friends or Lestrade never more than a little tipsy.

"Partly," John admitted. "And partly because of Harry. I went tee-total for a while as a kind of protest to her - I drank more than she did with friends, you know, so I thought if _I_ could go off alcohol completely then surely she'd see that _she_ could. Then when I started drinking again I just didn't like the feeling of being drunk anymore."

Sherlock nodded, processing the information. It felt a little like a gift that he had to turn over in his fingers a little before he could dismiss it. John noticed the expression and laughed. "One day, Sherlock, you'll know everything about me. And I'll know everything about you. One day, there won't be any part of either of us left unexplored."

He couldn't help but smile at the thought of all the days until then, and lifted the hand still clasped between both of his own to follow the scar with his lips, then his tongue. John yanked his fingers out of Sherlock's grip and kissed him hard until the cabbie banged on the partition.

"Not in my cab, you don't," he growled. Sherlock glanced at John, but had to look away quickly; John's cheeks were tinged pink and his eyes were dark, his lips still wet with Sherlock's saliva, and the sight of him immediately rerouted all of Sherlock's blood between his legs. He was getting an erection in the back of a taxi. Something else that he'd never imagined would happen to him before John, who was shifting in his seat as though he was in a similar predicament.

Sherlock reached out a hand and slid it onto John's thigh, feeling the warmth of his skin through his trousers. The doctor shifted slightly, letting his legs fall open, and so Sherlock took the invitation and let his hand stroke slowly up the inseam of John's trousers. The move was intended to tease John, but it kindled a slow burn in the pit of his own stomach as well. He hadn't actually felt John's cock in his hand even through his clothes in the course of their roleplays.

After what felt like an age he reached it, hot and pulsing, only to have John's own hand clamp down over his own and remove it. Sherlock looked at him in surprise. "I _refuse_ to come in my pants this time," John whispered, leaning in so that the cabbie wouldn't overhear them. "I want you naked. I want your skin on my skin, your cock on my cock."

"We're going to have to do the fastest strip in history once we get upstairs, then," Sherlock commented just as quietly. "John, it's… it's been _years_ since I've done this properly. With someone I care about. I would hazard a guess that stamina is not going to be high on my body's list of priorities. At least, not the first time."

John laughed. "No, I wouldn't put money on mine, either," he reassured him. "The first time."

With that said, he leaned heavily against Sherlock and closed his eyes with his face buried in Sherlock's coat. Sherlock wasn't sure whether the gesture signified the intent to fall asleep or merely to breathe in the smell of London and Sherlock that the Belstaff seemed to have imbibed, but he left him to it anyway. He tried to will away his erection, but with the weight of John against his side it seemed rather determined to stick around, so he let it be. It would be useful later, he thought with a tiny smirk and a swoop of his stomach.

He'd never _anticipated_ anything like this before, bubbling away like soda water in his stomach. He could feel his hands trembling with it. When the cab _finally_ pulled up outside Baker Street he shot out of his seat so fast he almost hit his head on the roof, threw far too much money at the cabbie, and raced to the doorstep with John hot on his heels.

His search for the keys was arrested by John grabbing his lapels and pushing him against the front door, standing on tiptoes in order to press their lips together. Their bodies rocked solidly against each other, and Sherlock momentarily wished that his coat was four sizes bigger so that he could button it closed around the two of them, shielding them from the outside world.

"God, please tell me your keys are accessible," John groaned against his lips.

Sherlock smirked. "We'd be inside by now if you hadn't attacked me," he accused.

John only laughed. "I couldn't help it," he confessed, leaning up again for a softer, sweeter kiss. "You looked so _you_ and I can kiss you whenever I like now."

Sherlock returned the sweet kisses, little flutters of lips on lips. "I think some situations are still better than others," he pointed out, lifting his keys from his pocket and jangling them in front of John's face.

The doctor laughed as they stumbled into the hallway. "So I should keep the crime-scene kisses to a minimum, then?" he giggled. Sherlock spun him around and pinned him to the inside of the front door.

"I think Lestrade would appreciate that," he replied, grinning, before swooping in for another kiss, tasting the awful Scotland Yard coffee at the back of John's mouth.

"Please tell me Mrs Hudson is out," John panted when Sherlock finally pulled away.

Sherlock frowned briefly. "I don't think she is," he admitted, "but I'm sure if we make enough noise she soon will be." John looked as though he wanted to look disapproving, but amusement won out and he laughed lightly. Sherlock grinned into another kiss. He _wanted_ John, wanted to rip his clothes off and lay him on a bed and taste every inch of his glorious body. The flipside was that he didn't want to stop kissing him for long enough to get there and he was just about considerate enough not to drop to his knees and block their landlady's escape route.

John's hand slipped from its death-grip on Sherlock's upper arm down to where his shirt tucked into his trousers, tugging at it until the shirt came free and his knuckles scraped bare skin. Sherlock moaned against John's lips and kissed harder, plundering his mouth as deeply as he could as John's hand popped open the button on his trousers and worked its way into them. His palm slid against the head of Sherlock's cock, already wet with days of anticipation, and Sherlock's knees buckled and he fell forwards with a soft cry, his hands on either side of John's head just barely keeping him upright.

"Upstairs," John insisted with a growl, withdrawing his hand from Sherlock's trousers and helping him back onto his feet. "Before we lose the ability to move altogether."

Sherlock chuckled weakly. "I think it's too late," he replied, adjusting his shirt where a button was digging into his skin.

John returned the chuckle. "I'd carry you, but I don't think my shoulder could take it," he said, affecting an apologetic tone. "We have to move, Sherlock - I am _not_ doing this without being naked, and I think coming out here to find us shagging nude on the stairs might give Mrs Hudson a heart attack."

Sherlock laughed, dipping his head down into another urgent kiss but breaking away again before the point of no return. "My bedroom's closer," he said quickly, grabbing John's hand and dragging him up the stairs behind him.

He knew Mrs Hudson would still be able to hear them and he had no intention of keeping quiet; hopefully the landlady would have enough sense to recognise the sounds for what they were and go and have a cup of tea with Mrs Turner rather than come up and investigate. He shut his bedroom door behind them anyway. "More naked," he commanded, dropping his coat and hastening to undo the buttons on his shirt.

One day he would like to undress John himself, slowly and reverently, kissing and scrutinising every inch of skin as he revealed it. Right now he just needed skin on skin, touch and warmth and friction, needed to get rid of the frenzied pulse of arousal so that they could build it up again slowly. He didn't think he had ever undressed faster, not even the time someone had let a scorpion loose in his clothes.

John growled in frustration; Sherlock looked up from hooking off his socks to see the doctor bent over with his trousers stuck around his thighs. "Here," he said quickly, moving over to help. John straightened, and Sherlock stopped dead at the sight of him, his scarlet y-fronts stretched over the head of his prick where he had attempted to pull them down. An audible swallow alerted him to the fact that John was staring at the damp spot on the front of Sherlock's own briefs. He smirked coolly, placing a coquettish hand on one hipbone and making John laugh. The doctor took enough of a breath in to calmly pull his fly open the rest of the way and step out of his trousers. They looked at each other for a heartbeat before hooking their thumbs in the waistbands of their pants and simultaneously pulling them down and off.

Sherlock stared at John's cock, unconsciously licking his lips. He'd never wanted anything in his mouth so badly. He watched as the doctor kicked the red-and-white undergarment out of the way and straightened, his eyes falling hungrily on Sherlock's naked body just as Sherlock's roved over his.

"Oh, God," Sherlock breathed, stepping forwards and kissing John again, wrapping their bodies together and burying one hand in the doctor's short, sandy hair. His cock nudged against the soft, dry skin of John's belly, and he could feel the hard heat of his new lover's own member pressing insistently into his thigh. _Skin on skin._ He whimpered, his knees trembling warningly. "Bed," he insisted once they broke apart for air. "I need you _now_."

John groaned, following him to the recommended piece of furniture and climbing on after him, settling comfortably between Sherlock's legs as he lay down. "This is familiar," Sherlock quipped, running his hands along the planes of John's shoulders and down his arms. "I wanted to touch your skin so badly my stomach hurt."

The doctor kissed him and lowered his body down so that they touched along the length of their chests. "There's nothing quite like being naked with another person," he agreed, but then their groins met and he cut off any further comments with a deep groan and a quick thrust downwards. Sherlock moaned, his hands travelling down John's back to grab two handfuls of his arse and pull him in again. Not having his hands restrained was a nice change, too.

Their hips were still rocking together, beyond Sherlock's control now; pleasure was sparkling through his chest with each slide of John's cock against his. "John," he murmured, removing his hands from the doctor's arse and working it between their bodies to wrap around their cocks. "I can't - I need to come, we can -"

"God, yes," John agreed, lifting himself enough to get his own hand around Sherlock's, tightening their grip and speeding up his thrusts, clearly beginning a race to climax. Sherlock bit his lip, but it didn't stop the noises spilling from his mouth, frantic gasps and whimpers because John felt _so good_ against him, hot and throbbing, and wasn't the human erection a marvellous thing, so soft and hard at the same time? John's good arm was trembling beside Sherlock's head with the effort of holding him up and little drops of sweat were forming on the bridge of his nose, and Sherlock couldn't hold it; he threw his head back and pulled John closer with the hand that wasn't clenched tightly around their pricks and cried out to John, John, _John!_

_"Sherlock,"_ John gasped, collapsing onto him and knocking all the breath from his chest as his arm finally gave out, his hand taking over to stroke them both through the climax that rocked them until Sherlock felt as though he would never be able to move again, every inch of his body shaking with relief, gasping desperately to regain the breath he had lost to the full weight of John's body resting comfortingly on his own. He liked the feeling of being utterly trapped, pinned there however accidentally by John and unable to escape him.

They lay there for a while, John's breath forcing Sherlock's chest further into the bed, their cocks still twitching helplessly against each other. After a moment, Sherlock sighed contentedly and shifted, and John took the hint and rolled off him to stare up at the ceiling with a tiny smile on his face, still breathing heavily. Sherlock gingerly flexed all his limbs in turn to make sure they all still worked.

"That was fantastic," John sighed after another moment.

Sherlock chuckled. "It was," he agreed, reaching down to take John's hand where it lay between them. "It will get uncomfortable in a minute, though." He ran a hand through their semen on his belly to illustrate, but John grabbed his fingers and sucked them into his mouth, licking the sticky fluid away from them.

He hummed in languid agreement. "It will," he said anyway. Then he sat up abruptly and leant over the side of the bed, returning with his discarded shirt and giving both Sherlock and himself a perfunctory wipe-down. "There," he finished. Sherlock smiled lazily. There would still be a sticky patch on his stomach, but when it began to itch he could simply invite John into his shower.

In the meantime, Sherlock rolled onto his side to look at John, still flat on his back and breathing to the ceiling. He swept his gaze down the doctor's body, smiling at the tan lines so defined at his wrists and neck it almost looked as though he was still wearing a shirt. He had always imagined John's body to be golden brown, but once the tan faded it was actually rather pale. Sherlock put out a hand and rested it, fingers splayed, over John's belly. He knew he was pale, but it was impossible to avoid a slight tan on the hands, and his hands were darker than John's stomach.

John turned his head to look at Sherlock and smiled softly. Sherlock smiled back. "You're beautiful," he told him quietly.

The doctor laughed. "I'm getting old and riddled with battle-scars," he replied, but he blushed and shifted self-consciously anyway.

"Yes," Sherlock agreed, chuckling as John took a half-hearted swing at him. "And it's beautiful."

He ran his fingers over the starburst lump of scar tissue on John's left shoulder, down over his nipples towards the white line from a teenaged appendectomy. John shivered and rolled towards him, his rough surgeon's hand cupping Sherlock's jaw and tugging his mouth in for a deep, languid kiss. Sherlock moved his hand down to John's hip and pulled their entire bodies together, warm and damp with cooling sweat.

They moved together, lazy and comfortable, and the feeling of John's bare skin under his hands was every bit as perfectly erotic as Sherlock had imagined all those times when they pretended to do this. He ran his hands down John's sides and his back and his front and his thighs, wanting to bend and stroke the insteps of John's feet but not being able to reach without separating their mouths. He wanted to know if the soft parts of John's feet were any less soft than the soft parts of Sherlock's, given that Sherlock's insteps were higher than John's. He wanted to know whether John's nipples were just as sensitive as his own, which had sent sparks between his legs even when simply rubbing against the fabric of his shirt as they rutted together.

He wanted to cover himself in the sensation of John's skin the way one might luxuriously spread themselves over a sheepskin rug or silk sheets, but he had a feeling John might object to being spread out and rubbed up against like an over-friendly cat. He smiled into their kiss in utter contentment.

John's penis started to fill out against Sherlock's abdomen once more as they kissed and stroked one another; Sherlock began to notice John's hands roaming over his back and side, trailing over the ticklish dip leading into his hipbone. He squirmed at this, making John break away from the kiss for a moment to chuckle delightedly. "Are you ticklish?" he asked, rather redundantly given that Sherlock was shifting breathlessly away from his fingers.

"I am when you're _tickling_ me," Sherlock retorted, all the snap leaving his voice on the gust of a giggle as John turned his fingers into claws and lightly scraped the stubs of his fingernails over the spot he'd been tickling, making Sherlock's hips jerk forwards against his own. The fingernails moved over the swell of his hip and down, to rake red lines into the looser flesh of his buttock. Sherlock's hips jerked involuntarily again, accompanied by a breathy laugh.

John grinned wickedly. "Your butt is ticklish," he stated, scratching it again.

Sherlock tried to scowl, but lost it in another giggle. "Well, it doesn't get tickled very often," he defended, circling his hips firmly against John's to try and distract him. It worked in a way; John's grin turned into a rich groan, but his fingernails dug into Sherlock's arse instead of grazing across it, which was just as ticklish. Sherlock huffed and bit at his lower lip, earning another groan, and then to change the subject entirely he rocked forwards and rolled them over so that he was on his hands and knees over the doctor and could bend his neck easily to bite the soft hollow underneath his chin, or sit back and survey the entirety of his body from a different angle.

He hadn't been lying; John's body _was_ beautiful. Every inch of it betrayed who his flatmate was, from the tan line to the scars to the way he was lying, terribly self-conscious but trying to show the opposite, his hands still gripping Sherlock's forearms, his eyes soft with more affection than Sherlock had ever seen in one place before. He couldn't stop his hands from continuing their lazy strokes over John's torso and hips, but he bent his head and kissed, licked and sucked every part of his new lover's body from which something could be deduced about him: his collarbone, slightly bent from being broken many years ago, the bullet wound in his shoulder, the still-muscled dip between his pectorals, the less-muscled flesh of his belly, his surgeon's fingers, the slight signs of wastage in his right thigh from months of walking with a limp.

John's fingers twitched urgently as Sherlock bit the soft hollow between John's hipbone and his thigh, a huff of breath almost like a laugh escaping his lips. Sherlock caught the signs immediately and looked up at John with a knowing smirk on his own mouth; John did laugh at the expression. "Shut up," he growled, but his lips twisted into a reluctant smile and his fingers threaded into Sherlock's hair.

He hummed approval at the pressure against his scalp and finally let his face trail closer to John's groin, nosing at his balls and breathing in the earthy, base scent there. He smelt like semen and musk and arousal and _man_ , and Sherlock's breath left his lungs quite suddenly, which in turn made John gasp as it blew out over his groin. Sherlock smiled at the feedback loop, breathing in again and darting out his tongue to lick up the seam between John's testes, resettling himself as John's legs spread wantonly underneath him and his grip in Sherlock's curls tightened.

_"Sherlock,"_ John groaned as he bent his head to take one testicle into his mouth and suckle it gently; the fingers in his hair tugged deliciously for a minute or so until Sherlock released it, turning to drop long licks over the other testicle before moving on to his cock, licking the taste of semen away from it before slipping it into his mouth and moaning at the resulting yank on his hair.

It had been years since Sherlock had done this, but he'd always enjoyed it. He knew where John's mind had gone when he'd mentioned the fact that he wasn't a virgin, but not all of Sherlock's sexual encounters had been with people he didn't care about. He supposed he'd had a fairly ordinary sex life when he was younger; at university especially there had been people he'd befriended and then grown attracted to just like anyone else, though perhaps without the soppy smiles and uncontrollable hand-holding that he saw teenagers doing now. He'd liked the feeling of doing something so tangibly pleasurable, liked the trust and the intimacy, but he also liked the simpler, tactile pleasure of having a cock in his mouth, the warmth and weight of it against his tongue and the roof of his mouth, the way it fit or didn't, the firm hands in his hair and the smell of arousal.

He looked up through his eyelashes at John and smirked as best he could, taking his cock as deeply into his throat as he could and swallowing around it. He had a feeling John wouldn't mind indulging this particular pleasure more often.

When his jaw began to ache he pulled off and stroked him instead, resting his head on the hollow in John's hip and still looking up at him with his lips curved into a smile that he hoped wasn't quite as goofily pleased as the doctor's own. John sat up on one elbow to better watch him, grinning. His other hand was still tangled in his hair; John gently disengaged it. Sherlock pouted. "That was nice," he told him plaintively.

John chuckled. "I never understood your obsession with your hair," he mentioned, reaching back down to stroke it gently. Sherlock leaned into his touch like a cat.

"I have sensitive follicles," he defended. "When people play with my hair it's like static electricity - my whole scalp sort of crackles. It's difficult to formulate an appropriate response to that feeling in public, so I style my hair carefully because I don't want to have to touch it. And I _definitely_ don't want other people to touch it."

"But you don't mind me touching it in private?" John asked, his hand stilling.

Sherlock frowned and headbutted his hand. "I already _said_ I enjoyed it, John. The reason I don't want it done in public is because it's horrifically arousing."

John laughed, his hand resuming its stroking motions through the curls at the top of Sherlock's head, before growing thoughtful. "Would you let me wash your hair one day? Give you a scalp massage while shampooing and rinsing your hair?"

A shudder of arousal racked Sherlock's body, making his hand tighten on John's cock and squeezing a moan out of John. " _One day_? Shit, John, could you do that _now_?" he asked before he could stop himself.

The doctor's hand clenched in Sherlock's hair as he laughed again, delightedly. "Of course," he replied, sounding a little dazed. Sherlock's cheeks flushed scarlet at his own eagerness, but John was sitting up and Sherlock's hand was falling from his cock and it looked like they were, indeed, doing this _now._ "I'll run a bath, we both need a wash anyway."

Sherlock smiled at John's practicality in the face of sex, but he still scrambled off the bed after him and opened the door a crack, peering out of it just in case Mrs Hudson had come up after all - somehow he didn't think she'd appreciate the two of them walking out in the altogether and clearly aroused in front of her - but the living room was empty, so they crept quietly out to the bathroom and John turned on the taps, straightening with an anticipatory smile.

It was so _John_ that Sherlock stepped forwards and pressed him against the bathroom sink perhaps harder than necessary, slipping his tongue into his mouth. John groaned, his hands going back to Sherlock's bottom and pulling them impossibly closer until their groins rubbed together again. They moved together for a moment, the sound of the bath running in their ears, until John pulled away just enough to slip a hand between them and wrap it around Sherlock's cock.

He moaned deeply, dropping his head onto John's shoulder at the sensation. Somehow it felt different, sharper, when they were naked and standing up and in the _bathroom_. He already associated his bedroom with sex - he'd brought someone there once, but more appropriately it was where he and John had role-played, where he'd masturbated while thinking about John, where he'd always imagined anything happening. Up against the bathroom sink made it _real_.

He let it continue for a moment, wondering whether he should reciprocate but so caught up in the _reality_ of the situation that he couldn't move his hands from clutching John's arms. Then he bit the doctor's shoulder gently. "Please, John, stop," he murmured. "Or I'll come before we even get in the bath - I think _three_ times in one go might be pushing it."

John laughed, but he let go nonetheless after one last twist of his wrist that left Sherlock gasping. "Hey!" John said after another long kiss. "There's still that bottle of bath stuff Harry gave me for Christmas under the sink. The stuff that you thought smelled nice."

It _had_ smelled nice, Sherlock remembered; John had offered it to him, but Sherlock had forgotten about it. He preferred baths to showers if he had the choice, but normally washing was a thing that happened between one event and the other and there wasn't _time_ for relaxing and enjoying the sensations evoked by a bath. By the time he had had the opportunity to enjoy a proper one, he'd forgotten there was something pomegranate-scented he could enjoy it with. He hummed approval and let John go so that he could fish it out of the cupboard and dispense some into the bath.

They kissed until the smell of pomegranates and steam from the hot water surrounded them, until the bath was a little too deep and John had to put towels down around the edges to soak up the water that slopped over them as they got in. Sherlock submerged his head briefly before leaning against John's chest and sighing in utter content.

John wrapped his arms around Sherlock's chest, his fingers playing idle circles around his nipples and making him shiver slightly in the water. They had sat down with John's back against the end of the bath and Sherlock's back against his chest so that John had easy access to Sherlock's hair, and Sherlock rather thought this would be a nice position to simply be with each other after solving a case. It was, however, rather difficult to relax with one erection nudging against the small of his back and another throbbing eagerly between his legs.

He tried rocking back against the one that belonged to John, but the movement caused water to slop dramatically over the sides of the bath, so he stopped, dropping his head back against John's chest and frowning up at him. "This arrangement doesn't do much for you," he commented.

"Don't worry," John told him, already reaching for the bottle of Sherlock's shampoo. "Once we've done your hair, we can let some of the water out and then we'll be able to move. It's not going anywhere, Sherlock, not with you sitting in front of it." Sherlock laughed and let it go, closing his eyes as John tipped shampoo onto his head.

And then John's hands were in his hair, tugging and pulling and massaging his scalp, and Sherlock slipped a few inches further into the water with a deep groan. "Oh, my God," he moaned, his back arching at the feeling of John's fingers on his temple. "Oh, my God, John, where did you learn how to do this?"

John chuckled. "I knew an apprentice hairdresser at university," he explained, but Sherlock wasn't really listening. "Apparently that's the first thing you learn when you're training. He was camp as a row of tents, of course, but a great bloke - he mentioned that head massage was great for getting laid, so I asked him to teach me. You think _I_ have magic fingers, you should have felt _his._ I was completely straight until he touched my head."

Sherlock snorted. "That's what they all say," he managed, though the sarcasm of his words was lost somewhat in another groan. " _God_ , you have to let me write to this man and thank him."

"I'm not sure I want him near you, actually," John commented. Sherlock could hear the frown in his voice. "Once you've felt _his_ hands, you might not want mine anymore."

His hands shifted slightly so that his fingernails were involved in the process, scraping the shampoo from Sherlock's scalp and redistributing it. Sherlock groaned again, then realised that probably wasn't an appropriate response to John's insecurity. "Will he shoot people for me, too?" he asked lazily, tipping his head back to look at John, which also had the benefit of moving John's attentions from the back of his head to his temples. "Will he make tea and breakfast and tell me I'm brilliant and not be able to set a fire and smile with his entire face, too?" John looked down at him and exhibited that full-faced smile. Sherlock smiled back. "If he's exactly like you, but with better scalp massage skills, _then_ I'll consider swapping." He thought about it. "And even then, I don't know if I would. Your scalp massage skills are more than adequate, and you have the added sentimental benefit of being the first person who ever got close enough to me that I couldn't imagine letting them go."

"All right, all right," John said, but he was grinning. "Head forwards again."

Sherlock tipped his head obligingly forwards and grabbed hold of the edge of the bathtub with one hand as John's fingers shifted to the sides of his head and massaged around his ears and down to the nape of his neck. The growl that escaped his throat as they reached there surprised even him with its low ferocity, making John laugh when he jumped slightly. No-one had _ever_ made him make that noise before. He shifted to take his weight on a different part of his bottom, the hand that wasn't gripping the bath so hard he thought he might break either his fingers or the rim of the bathtub drifting down to squeeze John's thigh in an attempt to avoid touching himself.

John stroked a hand down Sherlock's chest, tweaking his nipples again. "Lean back against me again and I'll rinse," he murmured. Sherlock complied, letting his entire body relax against John's and closing his eyes against the shampoo. John cupped his hand over Sherlock's forehead to divert the soapy water anyway, letting it run over his own shoulders instead. The water and soft stroking motions over his scalp, over-sensitized from John's earlier massages, sent sparks of pleasure to his cock and made him whimper softly. When John bent his head and pressed a kiss to the top of Sherlock's scalp he felt it so distinctly that he gasped in surprise.

"Gentler this time," he murmured softly as he felt cool shampoo drizzle over his hair. John hummed acknowledgment and focused his second shampoo on Sherlock's hair rather than his scalp, shifting and stroking the wet locks without actually touching his scalp more than necessary. Sherlock moaned, his fingers clenching on John's thigh as his groin throbbed.

He could remember the first time someone other than his nanny cut his hair, the first time he'd gone to a proper salon and had his hair washed by a professional. He'd almost jumped right out of the chair the first time the hairdresser touched his head. He was thirteen, and he'd already discovered the link between pulling his hair and sexual arousal, and he'd been completely shocked that a hairdresser could have such a cavalier attitude towards something so intimate. It wasn't until he talked to Mycroft about it afterwards that he'd realised not everyone had the same reaction, and he'd always been clear to his hairdressers since then that he had sensitive follicles and wished to have his head touched as little as possible.

It had been _years_ since anyone had explored his head like this, and Sherlock's entire body was trembling with the joy of it. " _John,"_ he whispered, and his voice came out about an octave higher than normal and positively _frantic_.

"Shh," John returned softly, rinsing the shampoo from his hair again. "I've got you, Sherlock." He stroked the hand that he was scooping the bathwater over Sherlock's head with gently down his temple. "A little bit harder with the conditioner okay?" Sherlock made a confirming noise and both of John's hands left his head to reach for it. "Touch yourself," John suggested.

So he hooked his legs over John's to keep himself upright and brought the hand that had been holding the rim of the bathtub between his legs, closing it around himself and just holding it there as John's hands returned to work on his scalp. They had reached a certain balance between the firm, almost rough massage of the first time and the light, wary manipulations of the second: John was careful not to be too rough and overload Sherlock with sensation, but his movements were more purposeful, more of a massage. With the added pressure of his hand sliding slowly on his cock, Sherlock's breath came in harsh pants and his abdominal muscles twitched as orgasm marched inexorably closer.

" _John,"_ he gasped, stroking himself faster as John gently tipped his head forwards to reach around his ears and the nape of his neck. "Oh, John, please, I can't hold it -"

The doctor leaned around his hands and placed a chaste kiss on Sherlock's cheek. "Then don't," he replied simply.

At his words, Sherlock's hand flew over his cock and he started to come almost immediately, his head falling back onto John's shoulder again with a slightly painful _thunk_ and his legs jerking enough to send water slopping over the sides of the bath. John's legs clamped over his own and his hands ceased their movement on his head, burying them and holding firmly instead to keep him from injuring himself any further after the first brutal whack of his knee on the side of the bath. John was saying something, maybe making soothing noises, but Sherlock could barely hear him over the roaring of his own blood in his ears - his vision had gone, he couldn't see, couldn't think, could barely _breathe_ as his whole body surrendered to the inferno of white fire that consumed it.

Even when it faded, it did so in waves, leaving Sherlock to slowly grow aware of the state of the bathroom and the fact that he was still making weak half-moaning, half-gasping noises as the aftershocks washed over him. "Oh, fuck," he whispered when he could control his voice and his mouth again. _Nothing_ he'd ever done had felt like that before.

John chuckled. "That's the third swear word I've heard you use this afternoon," he commented idly. "You have a pottier mouth than I do when it comes to sex."

"Only when it's _incredible_ sex," Sherlock replied, slowly letting his body relax from where his every muscle had clenched during his orgasm. "I think you broke my body, John. That was the best thing I have _ever_ felt."

The chuckle turned into a full-bellied laugh. "I'm glad you enjoyed it," he said warmly. "I'll drain the bath and start the shower - you can't rinse your hair in this, and I don't particularly want your come in my skin until the next time I wash, either."

Sherlock snorted a laugh in return and allowed John to prop him up and shift them forwards in the bath to pull the plug. "I'll just shower sitting down," he said as John struggled to stand. "There's no way my legs will support my weight for the next ten minutes or so."

John smiled down at him as he turned the shower on; Sherlock flinched at the cold spray before it began to warm against his skin. Really though, he mused as he watched the doctor, sitting down was the best place to be in this situation. Perhaps kneeling would put him exactly at eye-level with John's almost painful-looking erection.

After a few minutes Sherlock regained enough control of his legs to shift until he was on his knees in front of John with his back to the shower-head so that the spray was rinsing the conditioner from his hair, aided by John's fingers as the doctor smiled down at him. After another moment, Sherlock smirked back up at John and slipped the erection into his mouth, sucking gently.

" _Oh, God,"_ John groaned immediately, caving in around Sherlock's head but being careful not to tug on his hair. Understanding the desperate, urgent arousal John must be feeling, he set up a quick, firm rhythm with his mouth and smiled at the verbal response that tumbled out of the doctor's mouth. "Fuck," John cursed, taking one hand out of Sherlock's hair and bracing himself against the wall. "Oh, Sherlock, fuckfuckfuckfuck _fuckfuck_ \- _Sherlock!_ "

He held onto John's hips when the doctor's knees looked like they were about to buckle, swallowing the hot ejaculate as it flooded his mouth and smirking as he finally pulled off of John's softening cock. "What were we saying about potty mouth?" he queried wryly.

John grinned and switched off the shower spray. "I think we agreed it's acceptable if the sex is _incredible_ ," he returned.

Later, curled up on Sherlock's bed watching John's collection of _Doctor Who_ – well, John was watching _Doctor Who_ , Sherlock was more focussed on watching John and falling into a doze – Sherlock's phone buzzed with a text.

_Charlotte requested your number in case she needs to talk. That ok? –L_

Sherlock smiled slightly, tilting the screen towards John. "I sympathise with that girl more than I ought to," he commented, affecting an airy tone he didn't feel. "We were scarily good at that role-playing thing."

" _Technically_ , you were playing Amy, not Charlotte," John corrected him, smiling and settling more comfortably into his arms.

"That's what's scary about it," Sherlock told him. "I honestly think that if it had been Amy who'd been hurt by a string of bad men, Charlotte would have done something equally drastic. Just like if it had been you in that room that day, I would have shot that cabbie to save you."

John was quiet for a moment. "Promise me you'll never hide anything like that from me," he said when it had finished.

Sherlock squeezed him tighter. "I promise," he replied. "Everything I need, I can get from you. We've proven that today." He paused to kiss John's neck gently. "I love you, John."

The doctor tensed as though he had not expected to hear it; he turned in Sherlock's arms and kissed his lips, hard. "I love you too," he said fiercely. Then he split into a bright grin and turned back towards the laptop. "Now shush. The Angels have the phonebox."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those of you who have been following me since Infamia and are wondering what happened to the Lord Chamberlain's Men AU I was planning back then, I'm still doing that. Still pretty much in exactly the same place I was last time, although I'm now tossing up between Twelfth Night and Cymbeline, which is my favourite Shakespeare ever but is later than I'd planned historically. Anyway now that this is finished I'll get right onto that.
> 
> Thanks so much to absolutely everyone who has commented, subscribed, favourited, bookmarked or even just read this story, you guys are absolutely incredible.


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